THE  ROBERT  E,  COWAN  COLLECTION 


I'RKSKNTKD    TO    Till-; 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

MY 

C.  P.  HU.NTINGTON 

JUNE.   1897. 

:essior\  No.0  3  0  9      Class  No, 


(UNIVERSITY 

1QM? 

CALITORH^ 


George  Eliot, 

A  PAPER,  WITH    ILLUSTRATIVE  SELECTIONS, 


GORDON   BLANDING, 


E     '1  HK 


CHIT-CHAT  CLUB,  SAN  FRANCISCO, 

July  gib,  1877. 


George  Eliot, 


A    PAPER,    WITH    ILLUSTRATIVE    SELECTIONS, 


CHIT-CHAT  CLUB, 

San  Francisco,  July  9th,  1877, 


BY 


GORDON  BLANDING. 


GEORGE  ELIOT. 


Have  you  never,  gentlemen,  as  the  Saturday  pre- 
ceding the  second  Monday  of  the  month  found  you 
without  a  line  of  your  essay  penned  or  penciled,  nay, 
without  even  so  much  as  a  plot  for  your  story — have 
you  never,  I  venture  to  ask,  felt,  on  that  momentous 
day,  a  sentiment  of  inward  debasement  and  dread,  of 
degraded  insufficiency  for  the  uses  and  purposes  of 
this  mortal,  life  ? 

On  each  of  the  two  former  occasions  when  I  have 
had  the  honor  to  be  appointed  to  lead  off  in  our  in- 
tellectual feast,  I  plead  guilty  to  the  influence  of  this 
sentiment  in  all  its  power.  And  the  present  occasion 
forms  no  exception  to  the  two  which  have  preceded 
it ;  for  the  cloud  of  the  divine  awe — the  bitter-sweet 
of  authorship — hangs  heavily  on  my  soul,  and  I  find 
myself  again  appealing  to  your  clemency  rather  than 
to  your  justice.  I  cannot  forbear  mentioning  this 
mental  attitude,  now  thrice  recurrent,  not  in  the  least 
by  way  of  personal  extenuation  (God  forbid  that  I 
should  imperil  your  digestion  by  post-prandial  whin- 
ing !),  but  because  it  seems  to  me  to  carry  with  it,  by 
necessary  implication,  the  highest  possible  compliment 
to  that  little  brotherhood  known  as  the  "  Chit-Chat 
Club."  It  seems  to  me  to  imply  that  there  is  one 


small  gathering  where  I  shall  not  dare,  without  quaff- 
ing the  cruel  potion  of  self-doubt,  to  expose  my 
feebleness  and  my  superficiality.  It  is  well  for  us 
sometimes  to  tremble  in  the  presence  of  intelligent 
criticism,  and,  in  my  humility  and  my  fear,  I  find  the 
loftiest  tribute  to  that  modest  shrine  which  we,  the 
dwellers  by  the  far  Western  shore,  have  consecrated 
to  mental  culture.  Long  may  its  altar  fires  continue 
to  burn,  and  long  may  I  be  permitted  to  be  a  co-wor- 
shipper with  you  at  that  which  we  have  not  dedicated 
to  conscious  merit,  but  to  the  sincere  and  manly  pur- 
pose of  self-knowledge  and  mutual  development ! 

Nor  is  the  spirit  of  humility  inappropriate  to  us  to- 
night;  for  we  are  in  the  presence  of  a  name  which 
designates  the  facile  princeps  of  her  sex,  the  woman 
whom  the  greatest  of  living  minds  has  pronounced  to 
be  the  most  illustrious  among  the  daughters  of  Eve. 
In  such  a  presence,  we  are  treading  on  holy  ground, 
and  it  is  but  meet,  that  we  should  put  aside  the  san- 
dals of  a  flippant  criticism  and  draw  near  with  rev- 
erence. 

In  order  to  determine  our  conception  of  the  rank 
of  a  novelist,  we  must  first  determine  what  is  our 
conception  of  the  term  novel.  When  we  speak  of  a 
historian,  for  example,  that  word  gives  to  us  all  a 
reasonably  exact  idea ;  for  we  all  know  pretty  accur- 
ately what  history  is  or  ought  to  be  ;  but  I  fear  it  is 
not  so  with  the  term  novelist.  We  know  that  it  de- 
notes a  writer  of  novels  ;  but  what  is  a  novel  ?  Let 
us  turn,  for  example,  to  Webster's  Unabridged  (that 


great  authority  of  American  households),  as  one  of 
the  latest  sources  of  definition,  and  what  do  we  find  ? 
Why  this  :  "  Novel — a  fictitious  tale,  intended  to 
exhibit  the  operation  of  the  passions  and  particularly 
of  love,"  and  cited  thereunder  as  a  picked  quotation, 
embodying  the  cream  and  essence  of  the  term,  this 
line  from  Dryden  :  "  '  the  trifling  novels  which  Ariosto 
inserted  in  his  poems.' "  Shades  of  New  England 
scholarship,  can  it  be  !  Was  the  midnight  flame 
which  illumined  this  bit  of  wisdom  fed  from  the  won- 
drous lamp  of  Alladdin  !  Only  think  of  going  to  the 
author  of  the  "  Hind  and  the  Panther,"  who  lived 
more  than  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  before  the  pub- 
lication of  Waverley,  for  enlightenment  as  to  that 
which  had  no  existence  in  his  day.  The  "  -Passions  " 
and  "  Love  "  and  the  "Trifling  novels  of  Ariosto  !  " 
Alas  for  the  reputations  of  the  great  romancers,  from 
him  who  with  a  master's  hand  painted  the  manners  of 
the  Saxon  villain  and  the  Norman  lord,  down  to  the 
"  History  of  England,  in  five  volumes,  by  Lord  Mac- 
aulay  !  "  Nay,  I  shall  offer  you  rather  the  exposition 
which  precedes  the  great  romance  last  aforesaid,  where 
the  immortal  Thomas  Babington  says  that  it  is  his 
ambition  to  place  before  the  English  of  the  Nine- 
teenth Century  a  "Picture  of  the  life  of  their  ances- 
tors ;  "  for  I  really  must  insist  on  a  definition  which 
will  stand  some  chance  of  connoting  such  minor 
works  as  those  of  Scott  and  Bronte,  of  Dickens  and 
Thackeray,  of  Dumas  and  Sand,  and  even  of  the  sub- 
ject of  the  present  paper. 


A  "  Picture  of  Life  !  "  I  am  deeply  grateful  for  the 
phrase.  Not  a  picture  of  the  "  Passions "  or  of 
"  Love  ;  "  but  a  picture  of  all  those  infinite  and  sub- 
tle threads  and  fibres  and  nerves  of  thought  and  deed 
and  feeling  which  go  to  make  up  the  great  complex 
ganglion  of  existence.  And,  now,  let  us  differentiate 
the  historian  and  the  novelist  ;  for  the  former  is,  also, 
a  painter  of  life  ;  but  he  is  a  painter  of  the  actual — 
of  what  has  in  fact  happened,  while  the  latter  is  a 
painter  of  the  possible — of  what,  in  the  nature  of 
things,  might  have  happened.  It  results,  therefore, 
that  the  novelist  must  be,  also,  a  historian,  must  be  a 
historian  plus  something  else,  plus  the  power  to  read 
between  the  lines,  to  infer  the  unknown  from  the 
known,  and  to  evolve  out  of  an  abundantly  stored 
self-consciousness  the  life  which  was,  but  is  not.  His 
work,  accordingly,  resembles  that  of  the  constructive 
anatomist.  Given  certain  structural  bones,  to  find  the 
muscles  and  sinews,  nay  even  the  flesh  and  blood, 
and  thence  to  infer  the  habits,  the  instincts  and  the 
mind  itself.  You  perceive  at  once,  then,  how  exalted 
a  station  I  accord  to  the  true  novelist.  I  would  not 
tolerate  the  slightest  inaccuracy  here,  any  more  than 
I  would  in  history,  or,  rather,  ten-fold  less  ;  for  the 
mere  chronicler  may  be  convicted  from  his  manu- 
scripts, but  who  shall  impeach  the  renovator  of  buried 
civilizations,  the  constructor  of  thought  and  of  act 
and  of  all  outward  and  inward  process  ?  The  unit  of 
measurement  may  be  verified  once,  but  who  shall 
supervise  its  application  to  every  possible  curve  or 


UNIVERSITY 


square  ?  And  think  not  that  I  am  extending  the 
Websterian  conception  ;  for  how  much  of  all  that 
frightful  falsehood  that  has  been  outpoured  concern- 
ing the  "  Passions "  and  "  Love,"  how  many  of  the 
"  Trifling  novels  of  Ariosto  "  must  be  excluded  by  this 
test. 

Do  not  understand  me  as  in  any  way  implying  that 
this  has  been  a  long  recognized  standard.  It  was  not 
admitted  even,  up  to  the  time  of  the  publication  of 
Waverley.  Nay,  the  avowed  object  of  precedent 
romance,  whether  of  the  classic  myths,  or  the  contes 
of  the  Troubadours,  or  the  graceful  legends  of  the 
Langue  UOc,  or  of  the  Round  Table  was  to  weave 
with  the  threads  of  pure  fiction  and  romance.  With 
them,  the  avowed  object  was  to  stimulate  the  imagin- 
ation and,  with  opiate  rhapsody,  to  bear  the  reader  on 
the  wings  of  fancy,  to  the  home  of  the  Peri  or  the 
halls  of  Eblis,  and  the  work  was  good,  just  in  pro- 
portion as  it  was  unreal.  It  was  a  vast  step  in  ad- 
vance when  Sir  Walter  Scott  came  upon  the  scene. 
He  was  to  the  novel  what  Chaucer  was  to  English 
literature.  For  two  thousand  years,  philosophy  and 
history  had  divided  the  world  of  thought  and  letters, 
and  no  third  power  had  been  admitted  to  a  share  of 
empire.  From  Thucydides  to  Hume,  and  from  Aris- 
totle to  Bacon,  an  illustrious  mental  lineage  had 
transmitted  the  truths  of  the  concrete  and  the  ab- 
stract ;  but  the  truths  of  the  possible  were  but  feebly 
counterfeited  in  the  nursery  rhyme  or  the  border 
legend.  And,  then,  the  wondrous  Scotchman  came — 


8 


came  with  a  delicacy  of  fancy,  a  universal  sympathy, 
a  truthfulness  of  ideal  amounting  to  the  sublime. 
Through  the  trackless  sands  of  Syria,  amid  the  caves 
of  Engedi,  on  the  plains  of  sunny  France,  where  the 
demon  of  the  Jungfrau  defies  the  eternal  avalanche, 
over  the  tangled  defiles  of  Scotia,  his  spirit  passed 
and  waked  to  resurrection  sleeping  millions.  Again 
the  Crusader  sprang  to  horse  and  hurled  defiance  at 
the  Crescent,  again  the  hardy  Swiss  rushed  downward 
and  carried  death  to  Burgundy,  again  the  Highland 
chieftain  sounded  the  pibroch  and  led  the  fierce 
foray.  The  ear  of  Europe  is  caught  with  rapture  and 
historic  romance  is  born.  But,  meanwhile,  philosophy 
is  making  tremendous  strides.  The  change  and  the 
decay  of  faith  have  begun;  men  are  looking  within 
themselves,  with  eager  subjectiveness,  for  the  secret 
source  of  much  that  had  been  supposed  to  be  in 
nubibus,  and  the  methods  of  history  itself  are  being 
revolutionized  by  the  methods  of  empiricism.  His- 
tory and  philosophy  start  upon  a  different  and  intenser 
race.  Shall  the  new-born  art  be,  then,  abandoned  and 
no  hand  be  found  to  mould  the  unfinished  clay  ?  Was 
it  but  a  meteor,  or  was  it  a  portent  of  the  coming 
dawn  ?  The  question  is  answered  by  a  woman's  voice 
and,  in  the  intense  pleadings  and  questionings  of 
Shirley  and  of  Jane  Eyre,  the  child  gives  promise  of 
the  man.  And,  then,  come,  in  swift  succession,  the 
great  satirist  and  the  great  caricaturist  of  the  English 
novel.  Millions  are  moved,  at  will,  to  laughter  or  to 
tears,  and  the  work  begun  at  Abbottsford  keeps  swift 


pace  with  the  new  sciences  of  narration  and  of  thought. 
And  how  characteristic  the  change !  We  are  no  longer 
treated  to  the  deeds  of  heroes  and  of  conquerors,  of 
princes  or  of  chieftains;  but  we  are  carried  into  the 
lowly  paths  and  among  those  who  struggle  with  the 
problems  of  humanity.  History  can  no  longer  claim 
exclusive  monopoly  in  the  narration  of  social  truth, 
and  the  pages  of  Macaulay,  of  Hallam  and  even  of 
Buckle  give  evidence  of  the  influence  of  this  new 
commonwealth  in  the  republic  of  letters.  The  "  Pic- 
ture of  Life"  is  painted,  and  it  might  well  be  supposed 
that  the  wandering  troubadour  of  yesterday  would  rest 
contented  with  his  work.  There  is,  indeed,  another 
step;  but  will  any  one  be  found  to  mount  the  dizzy 
pinnacle,  will  any  dream  of  combining  the  historian 
and  the  philosopher  of  two  thousand  years  in  the 
novelist  of  a  day?  Again,  a  woman's  voice  replies 
and,  lo !  the  reluctant,  dogmatic,  exclusive  ear  of 
science,  the  ear  which  had  been  trained  for  centuries 
into  deafness  to  everything  not  born  of  analysis  is 
startled,  and  stoops  and  listens,  and  can  not  tear  itself 
away.  From  distant  lands,  the  Magi  hasten  with  offer- 
ings of  frankincense  and  myrrh,  and  England's  great- 
est philosophic  mind  utters  the  exclamation:  "Loftiest 
of  thy  sex,  and  equalled,  if  equalled  at  all,  by  few 
among  our  own  "  ! 

I  am  aware  that  I  have,  thus  far,  been  indulging,  to 
some  extent,  in  what  was  once  wittily  termed,  by  a 
member  of  this  Club,  a  "Bird's-eye  view  of  creation," 
and  you  may  think  it  is  about  time  that  I  should  say 


10 


something  concerning  my  subject.  But  bear  with  me, 
gentle  friends!  I  know  that,  when  a  pie  is  set  before 
a  man,  the  world  generally  regards  it  as  but  a  sign  of 
common  sense  that  he  should  straightway  proceed  to 
the  dissection  thereof,  without  preliminary  flourishes 
of  knife  and  fork.  But  the  world  is  a  base  materialist, 
and  I  plead  guilty  to  too  great  a  curiosity  about  my 
pie  to  yield  to  any  such  utilitarianism.  I  want  to  know 
who  was  the  cook,  and  what  relation  he  bore  to  other 
cooks,  and  whether  his  moral  training  was  such  that 
he  might  be  a  priori  liable  to  adulterate  the  mince- 
meat with  cat  or  dog.  And,  then,  too,  let  us  be  frank! 
You  know  that  Fourth  of  July  comes  but  once  a  year 
and  a  boy  must  have  a  show  at  his  firecrackers ! 

And,  now,  will  you  permit  me  to  ask,  in  resuming, 
if  it  is  not  a  striking  phenomenon  that,  while  the 
world  is  debating,  as  it  never  debated  before,  what  is 
the  intellectual  capacity  of  woman  and,  while  one  great 
school  of  physiologists  is  vehemently  denying  even 
her  physical  fitness  for  the  higher  education,  England 
and  France  have  each  produced  a  woman  who  has 
out-maled  the  males,  who  has  displayed  more  mascu- 
line breadth  and  depth  and  vigor  than  any  of  the 
writers  of  fiction  of  the  opposite  sex;  for  what  English- 
man could  have  written  "Middlemarch,"  what  French- 
man "  Consuelo  "  ? 

I  have  asserted  that  the  novelist,  in  the  highest  sense 
of  the  term,  must  be  both  historian  and  philosopher. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  George  Eliot  possesses  the  first 
requisite.  She  is  curtainly  familiar  with  the  language 


II 


and  literature  of  the  Greeks,  the  Romans,  the  He- 
brews, the  Italians,  the  Spaniards,  the  French  and  the 
Germans,  and  she  is  said  to  have  been  a  profound 
student  of  the  Talmud  and  of  the  Vedas.  She  is 
certainly  a  master  of  the  politics,  manners  and  cus- 
toms of  all  the  above  peoples,  and  none  who  have  read 
"  Romola "  or  the  "  Spanish  Gypsy "  will  doubt  her 
capacity  for  faithful  reproduction.  She  is  perfectly  at 
ease  amid  all  the  intricacies  of  the  constitutions  and 
inter-state  relations  of  the  Italian  Republics  of  th£ 
middle  ages.  The  painting  of  the  life  and  teachings 
and  death  of  Savonarola,  of  the  plots  and  counter- 
plots of  the  Dominicans  and  Franciscans,  of  the  in- 
trigues of  the  Medici  and  of  the  corruption  and  de- 
cline of  the  papacy  is  a  marvel  of  historic  reproduction./ 
And,  if  this,  which  is  but  the  warp  and  woof  of  her 
story,  be  marvelous,  what  shall  I  say  of  that  profound 
learning  with  which  she  explores  that  mere  incident  to 
her  tale — the  labored  and  futile  erudition  of  the 
Florentine  scholiasts !  Bear  in  mind,  too,  that  severe 
and  naked  simplicity  is  characteristic  of  her  style  and 
that  she  is  at  manifest  pains  to  exclude  all  foreign 
phrase,  save  when  essential  to  the  rilling  in  of  her 
work.  Her  fame,  at  least,  will  never  rest  on  her  capa- 
city to  emasculate  a  dictionary  of  quotations.  Lo !  as 
I  stand  before  you  to-night,  that  mighty  canvass  on 
which  is  outspread  the  streets,  the  porticoes,  the  man- 
ners, the  customs,  the  literature  and  the  life  of  Florence 
rises  before  me,  and  I  wander  along  the  grassy  banks 
of  the  Arno,  I  cross  the  Ponte  Vecchio,  I  lounge  into 


12 


the  barber  shops  and  enjoy  again  the  sparkling  wit  of 
the  news  gossips,  I  enter  the  studio  of  the  blind 
scholar  and  hear  the  Greeks  out-Greeked,  I  am  drawn 
with  the  hurrying  multitude  within  the  arches  of  the 
Cathedral  to  drink  in  the  burning  words  of  the  im- 
mortal Frate,  I  see  the  dreaded  French  careering  along 
the  public  ways,  to  be  succeeded  by  the  still  more 
dreaded  pestilence,  and  my  pathway  is  blocked  with 
rabid  lazzaroni  who  snatch  the'  crusts  of  bread  from 
the  very  mouths  of  the  stricken,  and,  then,  the  martyr 
fires  are  kindled  and  the  voice  of  the  Frate  is  hushed 
forever  and  all  is  night !  Oh  Florentia,  terque  quater- 
que  beata,  in  that  thou,  above  all  other  cities,  shouldst 
have  been  designated  for  immortality  by  the  divine 
pencil  of  this  modern  Angelo !  And,  then,  again,  I 
am  transported  to  the  vine-clad  hills  of  Spain,  I  see 
the  Crescent  slowly  paling  before  the  glory  of  the 
cross,  the  beautiful  Fedalma  seized  with  the  rhapsody 
of  song,  the  fierce  Zingali  lifting  in  dumb  obedience 
the  body  of  their  murdered  chief  and  all  the  weird 
complexity  of  that  semi-oriental  life !  And  what  of 
our  own  familiar  England  ?  What  of  the  peasant  life 
of  North  Loamshire  and  of  the  home  by  Dorlcote 
Mill  ?  And  these  are  but  samples  of  the  historic  gems 
scattered  through  the  deep  mine.  I  know  of  but  a 
half  dozen  of  the  great  novelists  to  whom  has  been 
given  an  equal  power  of  historic  portraiture,  and  they 
are  Scott,  Charlotte  Bronte,  Dickens,  Thackeray,  Du- 
mas and  Sand  and,  possibly,  in  spite  of  his  absurd  ex- 
aggerations, Victor  Hugo. 


But  I  turn  from  the  capacity  of  faithful  delineation 
to  the  philosophic  method,  that  other  element  of  the 
profound  novelist  (for,  thank  God,  novelists  may  be 
profound,  all  weight  of  evidence  to  the  contrary  not- 
withstanding), in  which  George  Eliot  has  not  only  sur- 
passed all  members  of  her  calling,  but  almost  all  phil- 
osophers themselves.  This  is  her  peculiar  province, 
and  here  it  is  that  she  has  created  an  epoch  in  ro- 
mance. It  was  a  vast  step  from  Sir  Walter  Scott  to 
Charlotte  Bronte  and  a  considerable  one  from  Char- 
lotte Bronte  to  Dickens  and  Thackeray ;  but  neither 
distance  compares  with  either  of  those  which  divides 
Sir  Walter  Scott  and  George  Eliot  from  all  their  re- 
spective predecessors.  They  have  both  been  founders 
of  great  types.  The  former  elevated  the  novel  to  the 
dignity  of  history.  The  latter  to  the  crowning  height 
of  philosophy.  Nothing  is  now  left  to  posterity  but 
to  imitate  the  masters. 

And  now  that  I  have  been  ruthlessly  taking  the 
measure  of  our  illustrious  author  for  some  time,  I 
propose  to  let  her  have  the  floor  and  tell  what  she 
knows  about  scientific  novel  writing  ;  because  if  she 
is  going  to  be  very  modest  in  her  programme,  and 
very  distinguished  in  her  performance,  it  won't  do  for 
us  to  be  too  hard  on  her.  The  year  is  1859.  The  work 
"  Adam  Bede,"  her  first  regular  novel.  Three  serial 
stories  have  appeared  from  her  pen  since  1857.  She 
has  begun  to  acquire  considerable  local  reputation 
and,  now,  on  the  threshhold  of  her  career,  she  deem§ 
it  necessary  to  define  the  task  which  she  has  prescribed 


14 

for  herself  in  the  world  of  fiction.  Observe  the  mod- 
esty of  the  manifesto,  the  unconsciousness  of  the 
powers  about  to  be  developed  ;  we  shall  witness  the 
performance  anon.  I  read  from  the  Seventeenth 
Chapter. 

"  '  This  rector  of  Broxton  is  little  better  than  a 
pagan  ! '  I  hear  one  of  my  lady  readers  exclaim.  '  How 
much  more  edifying  it  would  have  been  if  you  had 
made  him  give  Arthur  some  truly  spiritual  advice. 
You  might  have  put  into  his  mouth  the  most  beauti- 
ful things — quite  as  good  as  reading  a  sermon.' 

"  Certainly  I  could,  my  fair  critic,  if  I  were  a  clever 
novelist,  not  obliged  to  creep  servilely  after  nature  and 
fact,  but  able  to  represent  things  as  they  never  have 
been  and  never  will  be.  Then,  of  course,  my  char- 
acters will  be  entirely  of  my  own  choosing,  and  I 
could  select  the  most  unexceptionable  type  of  clergy- 
man, and  put  my  own  admirable  opinions  into  his 
mouth  on  all  occasions.  But  you  must  have  perceived 
long  ago  that  I  have  no  such  lofty  vocation,  and  that 
I  aspire  to  give  no  more  than  a  faithful  account  of 
men  and  things  as  they  have  mirrored  themselves  in 
my  mind.  The  mirror  is  doubtless  defective ;  the 
outlines  will  sometimes  be  disturbed  ;  the  reflection 
faint  or  confused  ;  but  I  feel  as  much  bound  to  tell 
you,  as  precisely  as  I  can,  what  that  reflection  is,  as 
if  I  were  in  the  witness-box  narrating  my  experience 
on  oath. 

"  Sixty  years  ago — it  is  a  long  time,  so  no  wonder 
things  have  changed — all  clergymen  were  not  zealous; 
indeed  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  the  number  of 
zealous  clergymen  was  small,  and  it  is  probable  that, 
if  one  among  the  small  minority  had  owned  the  liv- 
ings of  Broxton  and  Hayslope  in  the  year  1799,  you 
would  have  liked  him  no  better  than  you  like  Mr. 
Irwine. 


15 

"Ten  to  one,  you  would  have  thought  him  a 
tasteless,  indiscreet,  methodistical  man.  It  is  so  very 
rarely  that  facts  hit  that  nice  medium  required  by  our 
own  enlightened  opinions  and  refined  taste  !  Per- 
haps you  will  say,  *  Do  improve  the  facts  a  little, 
then ;  make  them  more  accordant  with  those  correct 
views  which  it  is  our  privilege  to  possess.  The  world 
is  not  just  what  we  like  ;  do  touch  it  up  with  a  taste- 
ful pencil,  and  make  believe  it  is  not  quite  such  a 
mixed,  entangled  affair.  Let  all  people  who  hold  un- 
exceptionable opinions  act  unexceptionably.  Let . 
your  most  faulty  characters  always  be  on  the  wrong 
side,  and  your  virtuous  ones  on  the  right.  Then  we 
shall  see  at  a  glance  whom  we  are  to  condemn,  and 
whom  we  are  to  approve.  Then  we  shall  be  able  to 
admire,  without  the  slightest  disturbance  of  our  pre- 
possessions ;  we  shall  hate  and  despise  with  that  true 
ruminant  relish  which  belongs  to  undoubting  confi- 
dence.' 

"  But,  my  good  friend,  what  will  you  do  then  with 
your  fellow-parishioner  who  opposes  your  husband  in 
the  vestry  ? — with  your  newly-appointed  vicar,  whose 
style  of  preaching  you  find  painfully  below  that  of 
his  regretted  predecessor  ? — with  the  honest  servant 
who  worries  your  soul  with  her  one  failing  ? — with 
your  neighbor,  Mrs.  Green,  who  was  really  kind  to 
you  in'  your  last  illness,  but  has  said  several  ill-natured 
things  about  you  since  your  convalescence? — nay, 
with  your  excellent  husband  himself,  who  has  other 
irritating  habits  besides  that  of  not  wiping  his  shoes  ? 

"  These  fellow-mortals,  every  one,  must  be  accepted 
as  they  are ;  you  can  neither  straighten  their  noses, 
nor  brighten  their  wit,  nor  rectify  their  dispositions  ; 
and  it  is  these  people — among  whom  your  life  is  passed 
— that  it  is  needful  you  should  tolerate,  pity,  and  love ; 
it  is  these  more  or  less  ugly,  stupid,  inconsistent  peo- 


i6 


pie,  whose  movements  of  goodness  you  should  be 
able  to  admire — for  whom  you  should  cherish  all 
possible  hopes,  all  possible  patience.  And  I  would 
not,  even  if  I  had  the  choice,  be  the  clever  novelist 
who  could  create  a  world  so  much  better  than  this,  in 
which  we  get  up  in  the  morning  to  do  our  daily  work, 
that  you  would  be  likely  to'  turn  a  harder,  colder  eye 
on  the  dusty  streets  and  the  common  green  fields — 
on  the  real  breathing  men  and  women,  who  can  be 
chilled  by  your  indifference,  or  injured  by  your  preju- 
dice; who  can  be  cheered  and  helped  onward  by  your 
fellow-feeling,  your  forbearance,  your  outspoken,  brave 
justice. 

"  So  I  am  content  to  tell  my  simple  story,  without 
trying  to  make  things  seem  better  than  they  were  ; 
dreading  nothing,  indeed,  but  falsity,  which,  in  spite 
of  one's  best  efforts,  there  is  reason  to  dread.  False- 
hood is  so  easy,  truth  so  difficult.  The  pencil  is  con- 
scious of  a  delightful  facility  in  drawing  a  griffin — the 
longer  the  claws,  and  the  larger  the  wings,  the  better ; 
but  that  marvelous  facility,  which  we  mistook  for 
genius,  is  apt  to  forsake  us  when  we  want  to  draw  a 
real  unexaggerated  lion.  Examine  your  words  well, 
and  you  will  find  that  even  when  you  have  no  motive 
to  be  false,  it  is  a  very  hard  thing  to  say  the  exact 
truth,  even  about  your  own  immediate  feelings — much 
harder  than  to  say  something  fine  about  them  which  is 
not  the  exact  truth. 

"  It  is  for  this  rare,  precious  quality  of  truthfulness 
that  I  delight  in  many  Dutch  paintings,  which  lofty- 
minded  people  despise.  I  find  a  source  of  delicious 
sympathy  in  these  faithful  pictures  of  a  monotonous, 
homely  existence,  which  has  been  the  fate  of  so  many 
more  among  my  fellow-mortals  than  a  life  of  pomp  or 
of  absolute  indigence,  of  tragic  suffering  or  of  world- 
stirring  actions. 


"  I  turn  without  shrinking,  from  cloud-borne  angels, 
from  prophets,  sibyls,  and  heroic  warriors,  to  an  old 
woman  bending  over  her  flower-pot,  or  eating  her  soli- 
tary dinner,  while  the  noonday  light,  softened,  per- 
haps, by  a  screen  of  leaves,  falls  on  her  mob-cap,  and 
just  touches  the  rim  of  her  spinning  wheel,  and  her 
stone  jug,  and  all  those  cheap,  common  things  which 
are  the  precious  necessaries  of  life  to  her ;  or  I  turn 
to  that  village  wedding,  kept  between  four  brown 
walls,  where  an  awkward  bridegroom  opens  the  dance 
with  a  high-shouldered,  broad-faced  bride,  while  eld- 
erly and  middle-aged  friends  look  on,  with  very  irreg- 
ular noses  and  lips,  and  probably  with  quart  pots  in 
their  hands,  but  with  an  expression  of  unmistakable 
contentment  and  good-will. 

"  '  Foh  ! '  says  my  idealistic  friend,  '  what  vulgar 
details  !  What  good  is  there  in  taking  all  these  pains 
to  give  an  exact  likeness  of  old  women  and  clowns  ? 
What  a  low  phase  of  life  !  What  clumsy,  ugly 
people  ! ' 

"  But,  bless  us,  things  may  be  lovable  that  are  not 
altogether  handsome,  I  hope  !  I  am  not  at  all  sure 
that  the  majority  of  the  human  race  have  not  been 
ugly,  and  even  among  those  '  lords  of  their  kind,'  the 
British,  squat  figures,  ill-shapen  nostrils,  and  dingy  com- 
plexions, are  not  startling  exceptions.  Yet  there  is  a 
great  deal  of  family  love  among  us.  I  have  a  friend 
or  two  whose  class  of  features  is  such  that  the  Apollo 
curl  on  the  summit  of  their  brows  wrould  be  decidedly 
trying ;  yet,  to  my  certain  knowledge,  tender  hearts 
have  beaten  for  them,  and  their  miniatures — flattering, 
but  still  not  lovely — are  kissed  in  secret  by  motherly 
lips.  I  have  seen  many  an  excellent  matron,  who 
could  never  in  her  best  days  have  been  handsome, 
and  yet  she  had  a  packet  of  yellow  love-letters  in  a 
private  drawer,  and  sweet  children  showered  kisses  on 


i8 


her  sallow  cheeks.  And  I  believe  there  have  been 
plenty  of  young  heroes,  of  middle  stature  and  feeble 
beards,  who  have  felt  quite  sure  they  could  never  love 
anything  more  insignificant  than  a  Diana,  and  yet 
have  found  themselves  in  middle  life  happily  settled 
with  a  wife  who  waddles.  Yes  !  thank  God  ;  human 
feeling  is  like  the  mighty  rivers  that  bless  the  earth; 
it  does  not  wait  for  beauty — it  flows  with  resistless 
force  and  brings  beauty  with  it. 

"  All  honor  and  reverence  to  the  divine  beauty  of 
form  !  Let  us  cultivate  it  to  the  utmost  in  men, 
women  and  children  —  in  our  gardens  and  in  our 
houses ;  but  let  us  love  that  other  beauty,  too,  which 
lies  in  no  secret  of  proportion,  but  in  the  secret  of 
deep  human  sympathy.  Paint  us  an  angel,  if  you 
can,  with  a  floating  violet  robe,  and  a  face  paled  by 
the  celestial  light ;  paint  us  yet  oftener  a  Madonna, 
turning  her  mild  face  upward,  and  opening  her  arms 
to  welcome  the  divine  glory  ;  but  do  not  impose  on 
us  any  aesthetic  rules  which  shall  banish  from  the 
region  of  Art  those  old  women  scraping  carrots  with 
their  work-worn  hands,  those  heavy  clowns  taking 
holiday  in  a  dingy  pot-house,  those  rounded  backs 
and  stupid  weather-beaten  faces  that  have  bent  over 
the  spade  and  done  the  rough  work  of  the  world — 
those  homes  with  their  tin  pans,  their  brown  pitchers, 
their  rough  curs,  and  their  clusters  of  onions. 

"  In  this  world  there  are  so  many  of  these  common, 
coarse  people,  who  have  no  picturesque  sentimental 
wretchedness  ! 

"  It  is  so  needful  that  we  should  .remember  their 
existence,  else  we  may  happen  to  leave  them  quite 
out  of  our  religion  and  philosophy,  and  frame  lofty 
theories  which  only  fit  a  world  of  extremes. 

"  Therefore,  let  Art  always  remind  us  of  them  ; 
therefore,  let  us  always  have  men  ready  to  give  the 


19 

loving  pains  of  a  life  to  the  faithful  representing  of 
commonplace  things — men  who  see  beauty  in  these 
commonplace  things,  and  delight  in  showing  how 
kindly  the  light  of  heaven  falls  on  them. 

"  There  are  few  prophets  in  the  world — few  sub- 
limely beautiful  women — few  heroes.  I  can't  afford 
to  give  all  my  love  and  reverence  to  such  rarities  ;  I 
wrant  a  great  deal  of  those  feelings  for  my  every  day 
fellow-men,  especially  for  the  few  in  the  foreground  of 
the  great  multitude,  whose  faces  I  know,  whose  hands 
I  touch,  for  whom  I  have  to  make  way  with  kindly 
courtesy. 

"  Neither  are  picturesque  lazzaroni  or  romantic 
criminals  half  so  frequent  as  your  common  laborer, 
who  gets  his  own  bread  and  eats  it  vulgarly  but  cred- 
itably with  his  own  pocket  knife.  It  is  more  needful 
that  I  should  have  a  fibre  of  sympathy  connecting  me 
with  that  vulgar  citizen  who  weighs  out  my  sugar  in  a 
vilely  assorted  cravat  and  waistcoat,  than  with  the 
handsomest  rascal  in  red  scarf  and  green  feathers  ; 
more  needful  that  my  heart  should  swell  with  loving 
admiration  at  some  trait  of  gentle  goodness  in  the 
faulty  people  who  sit  at  the  same  hearth  with  me,  or 
in  the  clergyman  of  my  own  parish,  who  is,  perhaps, 
rather  too  corpulent,  and  in  other  respects  is  not  an 
Oberlin  or  a  Tillotson,  than  at  the  deeds  of  heroes 
whom  I  shall  never  know  except  by  hearsay,  or  at  the 
sublimest  abstract  of  all  clerical  graces  that  was  ever 
conceived  by  an  able  novelist." 

So  much  for  the  programme.  And  now  for  the 
performance.  The  very  term  analysis  implies  growth, 
and  thus  it  has  been  with  George  Eliot.  Steady  growth 
has  been  the  law  of  her  mental  being.  Like  all  large 
minds,  she  gives  evidence,  in  all  her  earlier  writing,  of 


20 


painful  self-doubt — self-doubt  as  to  her  sufficiency  for 
the  toilsome  way  before  her.  But  she  grows  bolder 
and  bolder  with  each  successive  analysis,  and,  from 
the  completion  of  "Silas  Marner"  in  1861,  she 
begins  to  teach,  not  as  the  Scribes  but  as  one  hav- 
ing authority.  c<  Silas  Marner  "  is  her  first  great  anal- 
ytic work,  the  first  of  that  wonderful  series  in  which 
she  has  become  so  conscious  of  her  dissecting  power 
that  she  fairly  revels  in  the  exposing  of  muscle  and 
fibre  and  nerve.  She  feels  her  growing  strength  like 
strong  wine,  and  stops  abruptly,  on  the  eve  of  some 
great  dramatic  unity,  to  plunge  her  lancet  into  the 
lobes  of  the  brain — ay,  even  into  the  profoundest 
workings  of  the  soul  itself.  Nothing  escapes  her. 
She  gloats  over  her  victims  like  the  shadow  of  the 
Eumenides.  She  tells  us  not  only  why  they  have  done 
or  thought  anything,  but  why  they  will  do  or  think 
anything,  and  we  know  their  future  equally  with  their 
past.  I  am  using  no  exaggeration  of  language.  I  am 
really  beneath  the  mark.  We  feel  sure  that  the  spectre 
of  his  former  wife  will  some  time  rise  to  confront  God- 
frey Cass;  and  it  comes  at  last  in  the  person  of  her 
abandoned  daughter.  We  see  the  very  clutch  of  the 
remorseless  Baldassarre  tightening  around  the  throat  of 
the  graceful  Tito  as  he  passes,  exulting  with  success, 
through  the  labyrinth  of  Italian  intrigue.  We  know 
that  the  genius  and  purity  and  ambition  of  Savon- 
arola must  kindle  the  fires  of  martyrdom.  We 
are  certain  that  the  high-born  Silva,  "Wearing 
great  honors  as  some  delicate  robe,  brocaded  o'er 


with  names  'twere  sin  to  tarnish,"  must  drain  the  cup 
of  desolation  and  despair ;  that  the  autobiographic 
ideals  of  Dorothea  are  doomed  to  perpetual  chagrin 
and  that  Armgart  must  be  humbled  or  crushed.  We 
know  the  bitter  answer  that  is  waiting  for  Gwendolen 
before  Herr  Klesmer  has  opened  his  lips.  We  know, 
on  the  other  hand,  that  Adam  Bede  must  go  on  daily 
increasing  in  the  strength  of  honesty  and  of  all  righ- 
teousness ;  that  Dinah  Morris  will  be  found  within 
the  prison  cell,  upon  the  eve  of  the  execution,  strug- 
gling to  lift  a  fallen  soul  up  the  steeps  of  Calvary.  We 
know  that  Romola  must  rise  day  by  day,  above  each 
successive  bitterness,  in  proportion  as  her  husband 
sinks,  until  at  length  she  stands  the  simplest,  the 
noblest,  the  purest,  the  grandest  of  ideal  creations. 
Down,  down,  deeper  and  deeper,  our  author  goes, 
until,  in  the  "Spanish  Gypsy,"  completed  in  1868, 
she  touches  a  depth  of  soul-scrutiny  unequaled,  in  my 
opinion,  by  Shakspeare  himself.  Then,  in  her  suc- 
ceeding work  of  "  Middlemarch,"  given  to  the  public 
in  1871,  the  whole  of  her  dual  genius  of  historian 
and  philosopher  comes  forth,  in  complete  and  finished 
perfection,  in  her  great  studies  of  provincial  life,  and 
gives  to  the  world  by  far  the  finest  philosophic  novel 
of  English  or  of  any  literature. 

I  know  that  I  am  tasking  your  patience,  gentlemen ; 
but  I  crave  your  indulgence  for  a  few  moments  longer. 
The  subject  is  worthy  of  the  time,  and,  with  your 
gracious  permission,  I  would  fain  give  you  a  sample 
or  two  of  her  analvsis.  I  read  from  "  Silas  Marner  :" 


"  This  is  the  history  of  Silas  Marner  until  the  fif- 
teenth year  after  he  came  to  Raveloe.  The  livelong 
day  he  sat  in  his  loom,  his  ear  filled  with  its  monotony, 
his  eyes  bent  close  down  on  the  slow  growth  of  same- 
ness in  the  brownish  web,  his  muscles  moving  with 
such  even  repetition  that  their  pause  seemed  almost 
as  much  a  constraint  as  the  holding  of  his  breath. 

"  But  at  night  came  his  revelry;  at  night  he  closed 
his  shutters,  and  made  fast  his  doors,  and  drew  out  his 
gold.  Long  ago  the  heap  of  coins  had  become  too 
large  for  the  iron  pot  to  hold  them,  and  he  had  made 
for  them  two  thick  leather  bags,  which  wasted  no  room 
in  their  resting  place,  but  lent  themselves  flexibly  to 
every  corner. 

"  How  the  guineas  shone  as  they  came  pouring  out 
of  the  dark  leather  mouths  !  The  silver  bore  no  large 
proportion  in  amount  to  the  gold,  because  the  long 
pieces  of  linen  which  formed  his  chief  work  were 
always  partly  paid  for  in  gold,  and  out  of  the  silver  he 
supplied  his  own  bodily  wants,  choosing  always  the 
shillings  and  sixpences  to  spend  in  this  way.  He  loved 
the  guineas  best,  but  he  would  not  change  the  silver— 
the  crowns  and  half-crowns  that  were  his  own  earn- 
ings, begotten  by  his  labor;  he  loved  them  all.  He 
spread  them  out  in  heaps  and  bathed  his  hands  in 
them  ;  then  he  counted  them  and  set  them  up  in  regu- 
lar piles,  and  felt  their  rounded  outline  between  his 
thumb  and  fingers,  and  thought  fondly  of  the  guineas 
that  were  only  half  earned  by  the  work  in  his  loom,  as 
if  they  had  been  unborn  children — thought  of  the 
guineas  that  were  coming  slowly  through  the  coming 
years,  through  all  his  life  which  spread  far  away  before 
him,  the  end  quite  hidden  by  countless  days  of  weav- 
ing. 

"  No  wonder  his  thoughts  were  still  with  his  loom 
and  his  money,  when  he  made  his  journeys  through 


UNIVERSITY 


the  fields  and  the  lanes  to  fetch  and  carry  home  his 
work,  so  that  his  steps  never  wandered  to  the  hedge- 
banks  and  the  lane-side  in  search  of  the  once  familiar 
herbs.  These,  too,  belonged  to  the  past,  from  which 
his  life  had  shrunk  away,  like  a  rivulet  that  has  sunk 
far  down  from  the  grassy  fringe  of  its  old  breadth  into 
a  little  shivering  thread,  that  cuts  a  groove  for  itself  in 
the  barren  sand." 

You  may  read  on,  at  your  leisure,  the  splendidly 
depicted  struggle  in  the  miser's  mind  in  which  the 
love  of  the  foundling  child  conquers  and  drives  out 
the  love  of  gold. 

Hark  to  the  sudden  exclamation,  the  "  Some  mad- 
man, surely  !  "  of  Tito,  as  he  meets  the  panther  Bal- 
dassarre  upon  the  steps  of  the  Duomo — the  unguarded 
denial,  wrested  by  sudden  terror,  t instead  of  the  easy 
dissimulation. 

Read  the  great  scene  from  pages  431  to  439,  for  I 
have  not  time  to  do  so,  where  Romola  pleads,  with 
tragic  power,  for  the  interposition  of  the  Frate  to  save 
her  uncle.  Witness  the  subtle  analysis  in  the  death 
scene  where  Baldassarre  sits,  through  the  long  hours  of 
the  night,  on  the  body  of  Tito,  clutching  his  throat — 
the  avenging  Nemesis,  unseparated  and  inseparable, 
even  in  death. 

Permit  me  to  turn  for  a  moment  to  the  "  Spanish 
Gypsy/' 

[A  handsome  room  in  the   Castle.      On  a  table  a  rich 

jewif-casket.  ] 

"  Silva  had  doffed  his  mail  and  with  it  all 
The  heavier  harness  of  his  warlike  cares. 


24 

He  had  not  seen  Fedalma  ;  miser-like 
He  hoarded  through  the  hour  a  costlier  joy 
By  longing  oft-repressed.     Now  it  was  earned ; 
And  with  observance  wonted  he  would  send 
To  ask  admission.     Spanish  gentlemen 
Who  wooed  fair  dames  of  noble  ancestry 
Did  homage  with  rich  tunics  and  slashed  sleeves 
And  outward-surging  linen's  costly  snow  ; 
With  broidered  scarf  transverse,  and  rosary 
Handsomely  wrought  to  fit  high-blooded  prayer ; 
So  hinting  in  how  deep  respect  they  held 
That  self  they  threw  before  their  lady's  feet. 
And  Silva — that  Fedalma's  rate  should  stand 
No  jot  below  the  highest,  that  her  love 
Might  seem  to  all  the  royal  gift  it  was — 
Turned  every  trifle  in  his  mien  and  garb 
To  scrupulous  language,  uttering  to  the  world 
That  since  she  loved  him  he  went  carefully, 
Bearing  a  thing  so  precious  in  his  hand. 
A  man  of  high-wrought  strain,  fastidious 
In  his  acceptance,  dreading  all  delight 
That  speedy  dies  and  turns  to  carrion  : 
His  senses  much  exacting,  deep  instilled 
With  keen  imagination's  difficult  needs  ; — 
Like  strong-limbed  monsters  studded  o'er  with  eyes, 
Their  hunger  checked  by  overwhelming  vision, 
Or  that  fierce  lion  in  symbolic  dream 
Snatched  from  the  ground  by  wings  and  new-endowed 
With  a  man's  thought-propelled  relenting  heart, 
bilva  was  both  the  lion  and  the  man  ; 
First  hesitating  shrank,  then  fiercely  sprang, 
Or  having  sprung,  turned  pallid  at  his  deed 
And  loosed  the  prize,  paying  his  blood  for  naught. 
A  nature  half-transformed,  with  qualities 
That  oft  bewrayed  each  other,  elements 
Not  blent  but  struggling,  breeding  strange  effects, 


Passing  the  reckoning  of  his  friends  or  foes. 
Haughty  and  generous,  grave  and  passionate  ; 
With  tidal  moments  of  devoutest  awe, 
Sinking  anon  to  furthest  ebb  of  doubt ; 
Deliberating  ever.,  till  the  sting 
Of  a  recurrent  ardor  made  him  rush 
Right  against  reasons  that  himself  had  drilled 
And  marshalled  painfully.     A  spirit  framed 
Too  proudly  special  for  obedience, 
Too  subtly  pondering  for  mastery  : 
Born  of  a  goddess  with  a  mortal  sire, 
Heir  of  flesh-fettered,  weak  divinity, 
Doom -gifted  with  long  resonant  consciousness 
And  perilous  heightening  of  the  sentient  soul, 
But  look  less  curiously  ;*  life  itself 
May  not  express  us  all,  may  leave  the  worst 
And  the  best,  too,  like  tunes  in  mechanism 
Never  awaked.     In  various  catalogues 
Objects  stand  variously.     Suva  stands 
As  a  young  Spaniard,  handsome,  noble  >  brave, 
WitJi  titles  many,  high  in  pedigree  ; 
Or,  as  a  nature  quiveringly  poised 
In  reach  of  storms,  whose  qualities  may  turn 
To  murdered  virtues  that  still  walk  as  ghosts 
Within  the  shuddering  soul  and  shriek  remorse  ;_. 
\Or,  as  a  lover    .     ...    In  the  screening  time 
Of  purple  blossoms,  when  the  petals  crowd 
And  softly  crush  like  cherub  cheeks  in  heaven, 
Who  thinks  of  greenly  withered  fruit  and  worms  ? 
O  the  warm  southern  spring  is  beauteous  ! 

:  These  words  corne  to  us  like  a  sigh  of  relief  after  the  intensity  of  the 
analytic  scrutiny  which  precedes  them. 

t  Nothing  could  be  more  artistic,  as  a  peroration  to. a  profound  intellectual 
effort,  than  the  exquisitely  poetic  lines  which  follow— lines  of  which  it  is 
difficult  to  say  whether  the  poetry  or  the  thought  is  of  a  loftier  type  and 
which  are  so  skilfully  constructed  that  their  very  poetry  itself  becomes  a 
prominent  factor  in  the  logical  conception. 


26 


And  in  love's  spring  all  good  seems  possible  : 
No  threats,  all  promise •,  brooklets  ripple  full 
And  bathe  the  rushes,  vicious  crawling  things 
Are  pretty  eggs,  the  sun  shines  graciously 
And  parches  not,  the  silent  rain  beats  warm 
As  childhood^s  kisses,  days  are  young  and  grow^ 
And  earth  seems  in  its  sweet  beginning  time 
Fresh  made  for  two  who  live  in  Paradise. 
Silva  is  in  love's  spring,  its  freshness  breathed 
Within  his  soul  along  the  dusty  ways 
While  marching  homeward  ;  '/  is  around  him  now 
As'  in  a  garden  fenced  in  for  delight  f     *     *     * 

Then  follows  the  scene  between  Silva  and  the 
Prior,  near  the  culmination  of  which  occurs  the  great 
passage,  which  is  itself  an  epitome  of  psychical  evo- 
lution. 

DON  SILVA  (scornfully^. 
Holy  accusers  practise  palmistry 
And,  other  witness  lacking,  read  the  skin. 

PRIOR. 

/  read  a  record  deeper  than  the  skin, 
What !  Shall  the  trick  of  nostrils  and  of  lips 
Descend  through  generations,  and  the  soul 
That  moves  within  our  frame,  like  God  in  worlds — 
Convulsing,  urging,  melting,  withering — 
Imprint  no  record,  leave  no  documents, 
Of  her  great  history  ?     Shall  men  bequeath 
The  fancies  of  their  palate  to  their  sons, 
And  shall  the  shudder  of  restraining  awe, 


t  The  whole  of  the  foregoing  passage  in  italics  is  a  wonderful  piece  of 
character  analysis,  and  only  surpassed — if  degrees  of  excellence  may  be 
predicated  of  productions  which  are  perfect  in  themselves — by  the  intellec- 
,tual  and  psychical  portraiture  of  Daniel  Deronda,  infra. 


27 

The  slow-wept  tears  of  contrite  memory, 
Faith's  prayerful  labor,  and  the  food  divine 
Of  fasts  ecstatic, —  shall  these  pass  away 
Like  wind  upon  the  waters,  tracklessly  ? 
Shall  the  mere  curl  of  eyelashes  remain 
And  god-enshrining  symbols  leave  no  trace 
Of  tremors  reverent  2 — That  maiden's  blood 
Is  as  unchristian  as  the  leopards. 

I  have  read  more  copiously  from  the  "  Spanish 
Gypsy,"  because  it  is  George  Eliot's  nearest  approach 
to  tragedy,  and  because  it  only  serves  to  make  us  fer- 
vently hope  that  she  may  yet  essay  this  highest  walk 
of  the  drama,  where  she  may  contend  side  by  side 
with  the  masterpieces  of  Shakspeare.  Compare,  too, 
in  reading  this  great  work — as  I  trust,  if  you  have  not 
already  done  so,  you  will — its  analytic  power  with  the 
relative  feebleness  of  Tennyson's  "  Queen  Mary." 
And,  now,  let  me  turn,  for  a  moment,  to  "  Armgart," 
a  fragment  of  subtlest  force,  written  in  1870. 

ARMGART. 

I  am  not  glad  with  that  mean  vanity 
Which  knows  no  good  beyond  its  appetite 
Full  feasting  upon  praise  !     I  am  only  glad, 
Being  praised  for  what  I  know  is  worth  the  praise ; 
Glad  of  the  proof  that  I  myself  have  part 
In  what  I  worship  !     At  the  last  applause — 
Seeming  a  roar  of  tropic  winds  that  tossed 
The  handkerchiefs  and  many-colored  flowers, 
Falling  like  shattered  rainbows  all  around — 
Think  you  I  felt  myself  a  prima  donna  ? 
No,  but  a  happy  spiritual  star, 
Such  as  old  Dante  saw,  wrought  in  a  rose 


28 


Of  light  in  Paradise,  whose  only  self 
Was  consciousness  of  glory  wide-diffused, 
Music,  life,  power — I  moving  in  the  midst 
With  a  sublime  necessity  of  good. 

LEO  (with  a  shrug). 

I  thought  it  was  a  prima  donna  came 
Within  the  side  scenes ;  ay,  and  she  was  proud 
To  find  the  bouquet  from  the  royal  box 
Enclosed  a  jewel-case,  and  proud  to  wear 
A  star  of  brilliants,  quite  an  earthly  star, 
Valued  by  thalers.     Come,  my  lady,  own 
Ambition  has  five  senses,  and  a  self 
That  gives  it  good  warm  lodging  when  it  sinks 
Plump  down  from  ecstasy. 

ARMGART. 

Own  it  ?     Why  not  ? 

Am  I  a  sage  whose  words  must  fall  like  seed 
Silently  buried  toward  a  far-off  spring  ? 
I  sing  to  living  men,  and  my  effect 
Is  like  the  summer's  sun,  that  ripens  corn 
Or  now  or  never.     If  the  world  brings  me  gifts, 
Gold,  intense,  myrrh— 'twill  be  the  needtul  sign 
That  I  have  stirred  it  as  the  high  year  stirs 
Before  I  sink  to  winter. 

GRAF  (Armgart's  lover). 

Ecstasies 

Are  short — most  happily  !     We  should  but  lose 
Were  Armgart  borne  too  commonly  and  long 
Out  of  the  self  that  charms  us.     Could  I  choose, 
She  were  less  apt  to  soar  beyond  the  reach 
Of  woman's  foibles,  innocent  vanities, 
Fondness  for  trifles  like  that  pretty  star 
Twinkling  beside  her  cloud  of  ebon  hair. 


29 

ARMGART  (taking  out  the  gem  and  looking  at  if], 
This  little  star  !     I  would  it  were  the  seed 
Of  a  whole  milky  way,  if  such  bright  shimmer 
Were  the  sole  speech  men  told  their  rapture  with 
At  Armgart's  music.     Shall  I  turn  aside 
From  splendors  which  flash  out  the  glow  I  make, 
And  live  to  make,  in  all  the  chosen  breasts 
Of  half  a  continent  ?     No,  may  it  come, 
That  splendor  1     May  the  day  be  near  when  men 
Think  much  to  let  my  horses  draw  me  home, 
And  new  lands  welcome  me  upon  their  beach, 
Loving  me  for  my  fame.     That  is  the  truth 
Of  what  I  wish,  nay,  yearn  for.     Shall  I  lie  ? 
Pretend  to  seek  obscurity — to  sing 
In  hope  of  disregard  ?     A  vile  pretence  ! 
And  blasphemy  besides.     For  what  is  fame 
But  the  benignant  strength  of  One,  transformed 
To  joy  of  many  ?     Tributes,  plaudits  come 
As  necessary  breathing  of  such  joy ; 

And  may  they  come  to  me  ! 

*"#.##.##'*'•» 

[Meanwhile,  Armgart  has  had  a  severe  attack  of 
illness.  In  curing  her,  the  physician  has  used  violent 
remedies  that  have  destroyed  her  voice,  without  her 
knowledge.  Overcome  with  ennui  and  longing,  she 
escapes  from  her  chamber  of  convalescence,  and  goes 
to  the  opera,  and  sings,  and  fails.] 

SCENE  IV.—  Two  HOURS  LATER. 
[Walpurga  starts  up,  looking  towards  the  door.  Arm- 
gart enters,  followed  by  Leo.  She  throws  herself 
on  a  chair,  speechless,  not  seeming  to  see  any- 
thing. Walpurga  casts  a  questioning,  terrified 
look  at  Leo.  He  shrugs  his  shoulders,  and  lifts 
up  his  hands  behind  Armgart,  wrho  sits  like  a 
helpless  image,  while  Walpurga  takes  off  her  hat 
and  mantle.] 


WALPURGA. 

Armgart,  dear  Armgart,  only  speak  to  mey 
Your  poor  Walpurga.     Oh,  your  hands  are  cold. 
Clasp  mine,  and  warm  them  !     I  will  kiss  them  warm. 
[Armgart  looks  at  her  an  instant,  then  draws   away 
her  hands,  and,  turning  aside,  buries  her  face  against 
the  back  of  the  chair,  Wilpurga  rising   and   standing 
near.      Doctor  enters.  ] 

DOCTOR. 
News  !  stirring  news  to-d.iy  !     Wonders  come  thick. 

ARMGART  (starting  up  at  the  first  sound  of  his  voice* 

and  speaking  vehemently}. 

Yes,  thick,  thick,  thick  !  and  you  have  murdered  it  ! 
Murdered  my  voice — poisoned  the  soul  in  me, 
And  kept  me  living. 
You  never  told  me  that  your  cruel  cures 
Were  clogging  films — a  mouldy,  dead'ning  blight — 
A  lava-mud  to  crust  and  bury  me, 
Yet  hold  me  living  in  a  deep,  deep  tomb, 
Crying  unheard  forever  !     Oh,  your  cures 
Are  devil's  triumphs  :  you  can  rob,  maim,  slay, 
And  keep  a  hell  on  the  other  side  your  cure 
Where  you  can  see  your  victim  quivering 
Between  the  teeth  of  torture — see  a  soul 
Made  keen  by  loss — all  anguish  with  a  good 
Once  known  and  gone  ! 

( Turns  and  sinks  back  on  her  chair. ) 

O  misery,  misery  ! 

You  might  have  killed  me,  might  have  let  me  sleep 
After  my  happy  day,  and  wake — not  here  ! 
In  some  new  unremembered  world — not  here, 
Where  all  is  faded,  flat — a  feast  broke  off- 
Banners  all  meaningless — exulting  words 


Dull,  dull—  a  drum  that  lingers  in  the  air 
Beating  to  melody  which  no  man  hears. 

DOCTOR  (after  a  moment's  silence). 
A  sudden  check  has  shaken  you,  poor  child  ! 
All  things  seem  livid,  tottering  to  your  sense, 
From  inward  tumult.     Stricken  by  a  threat 
You  see  your  terrors  only.     Tell  me,  Leo  : 
'Tis  not  such  utter  loss. 

(LEO,  with  a  shrug,  goes  quietly  (ntt.) 

The  freshest  bloom 
Merely,  has  left  the  fruit ;  the  fruit  itself— 

ARMGART. 

Is  rained,  withered,  is  a  thing  to  hide 
Away  from  scorn  or  pity.     Oh,  you  stand 
And  look  compassionate  now,  but  when  Death  came 
With  mercy  in  his  hands,  you  hindered  him. 
I  did  not  choose  to  live  and  have  your  pity. 
You  never  told  me,  never  gave  me  choice 
To  die  a  singer,  lightning-struck,  unmaimed, 
Or  live  what  you  would  make  me  with  your  cures — 
A  self  accursed  with  consciousness  of  change, 
A  mind  that  lives  in  nought  but  members  lopped 
A  power  turned  to  pain — as  meaningless 
As  letters  fallen  asunder  that  once  made 
A  hymn  of  rapture.     Oh,  I  had  meaning  once, 
Like  day  and  sweetest  air.     What  am  I  now  ? 
The  millionth  woman  in  superfluous  herds. 
Why  should  I  be,  do,  think  ?     Tis  thistle-seed, 
That  grows  and  grows  to  feed  the  rubbish-heap. 
Leave  me  alone  ! 

DOCTOR. 

Well,  I  will  come  again ; 

Send  for  me  when  you  will,  though  but  to  rate  me. 
That  is  medicinal — a  letting  blood. 


ARMGART. 

Oh,  there  is  one  physician,  only  one, 
Who  cures  and  never  spoils.      Him   I   shall  send  for 
He  comes  readily. 

DOCTOR  (to  WALPURGA). 
One  word,  dear  Fraulein. 

SCENE   V.—  (ARMGART,  WALPURGA.) 

ARMGART. 
Walpurga,  have  you  walked  this  morning? 

WALPURGA. 
No. 

ARMGART. 
Go,  then,  and  walk  ;  I  wish  to  be  alone. 

WALPURGA. 
I  will  not  leave  you. 

ARMGART. 
Will  not,  at  my  wish  ? 

WALPURGA. 

Will  not,  because  you  wish  it.     Say  no  more, 
But  take  this  draught. 

ARMGART. 

The  Doctor  gave  it  you  ? 
It  is  an  anodyne.     Put  it  away. 
He  cured  me  of  my  voice,  and  now  he  wants 
To  cure  me  of  my  vision  and  resolve — 
Drug  me  to  sleep,  that  I  may  wake  again 
Without  a  purpose,  abject  as  the  rest 
To  bear  the  yoke  of  life.     He  shall  not  cheat  me 
Of  that  fresh  strength  which  anguish  gives  the  soul, 
The  inspiration  of  revolt,  ere  rage 
Slackens  to  faltering.     Now  I  see  the  truth. 


33 


WALPURGA  (setting  down  the  glass. ) 
Then  you  must  see  a  future  in  your  reach, 
With  happiness  enough  to  make  a  dower 
For  two  of  modest  claims. 

ARMGART. 

Oh,  you  intone 

That  chant  of  consolation  wherewith  ease 
Makes  itself  easier  in  the  sight  of  pain. 

WALPURGA. 

\ 

No  ;  I  would  not  console  you,  but  rebuke. 

ARMGART. 

That  is  more  bearable.     Forgive  me,  dear, 
Say  what  you  will.     But  now  I  want  to  write. 
(She  rises,  and  moves  towards  a  table.} 

WALPURGA. 

I  say  then,  you  are  simply  feuered,  mad ; 
You  cry  aloud  at  horrors  that  would  vanish 
If  you  would  change  the  light,  throw  into  shade 
The  loss  you  aggrandize,  and  let  day  fall 
On  good  remaining,  nay  on  good  refused 
Which  may  be  gain  now.     Did  you  not  reject 
A  woman's  lot  more  brilliant,  as  some  held, 
Than  any  singer's?     It  may  still  be  yours. 
Graf  Dornberg  loved  you  well. 

ARMGART. 

Not  me,  not  me. 

He  loved  one  well  who  was  like  me  in  all 
Save  in  a  voice  which  made  that  All  unlike 
As  diamond  is  to  charcoal.     Oh,  a  man's  love ! 
Think  you  he  loves  a  woman's  inner  self 
Aching  with  loss  of  loveliness  ? — as  mothers 
Cleave  to  the  palpitating  pain  that  dwells 
Within  their  misformed  offspring  ? 


34 


WALPURGA. 

But  the  Graf 

Chose  you  as  simple  Armgart— had  preferred 
That  you  should  never  seek  for  any  fame 
But  such  as  matrons  have  who  rear  great  sons. 
And  therefore  you  rejected  him ;  but  now — 

ARMGART. 

Ay,  now — now  he  would  see  me  as  I  am, 
(She  takes  up  a  hand-mirror,} 
Russet  and  songless  as  a  missel-thrush, 
An  ordinary  girl  —a  plain  brown  girl, 
Who,  if  some  meaning  flash  from  out  her  words, 
Shocks  as  a  disproportioned  thing — a  Will 
That,  like  an  arm  astretch  and  broken  off, 
Has  nought  to  hurl — the  torso  of  a  soul. 
I  sang  him  into  love  of  me ;  my  song 
Was  consecration,  lifted  me  apart 
From  the  crowd  chiselled  like  me,  sister  forms, 
But  empty  of  divineness.     Nay,  my  charm 
Was  half  that  I  could  win  fame,  yet  renounce  ! 
A  wife  with  glory  possible  absorbed 
Into  her  husband's  actual. 

WALPURGA. 

For  shame  ! 

Armgart,.  you  slander  him.     What  would  you  say 
If  now  he  came  to  you  and  asked  again 
That  you  would  be  his  wife  ? 

ARMGART. 

No,  and  thrice  no  ! 

It  would  be  pitying  constancy,  not  love, 
That  brought  him  to  me  now.      I  will  not  be 
A  pensioner  in  marriage.     Sacraments 
Are  not  to  feed  the  paupers  of  the  world. 
If  he  were  generous — I  am  generous  too. 


35 

WALPURGA. 

Proud,  Armgart,  but  not  generous. 
ARMGART. 

Say  no  more. 
He  will  not  know  until — 

WALPURGA. 
He  knows  already. 

ARMGART  (quickly}. 
Is  he  come  back  ? 

WALPURGA. 

Yes,  and  will  soon  be  here. 
The  Doctor  had  twice  seen  him,  and  would  go 
From  hence  again  to  see  him. 

ARMGART. 
Well,  he  knows. 
It  is  all  one. 

WALPURGA. 

What  if  he  were  outside  ? 
I  hear  a  footstep  in  the  ante-room. 

ARMGART  (raising  herself  and  assuming  calmness}. 
Why  let  him  come,  of  course.     I  shall  behave 
Like  what  I  am,  a  common  personage 
Who  looks  for  nothing  but  civility. 
I  shall  not  play  the  fallen  heroine, 
Assume  a  tragic  part,  and  throw  out  cues 
For  a  beseeching  lover. 

WALPURGA. 

Some  one  raps. 
(Goes  to  the  door.} 
A  letter — from  the  Graf. 

ARMGART. 
Then  open  it. 


36 

(WALPURGA  still  offers  if). 
Nay,  my  head  swims.     Read  it.     I  cannot  see. 
(WALPURGA  opens  it,  reads  and  pauses]. 
Read  it.     Have  done  !     No  matter  what  it  is. 

WALPURGA 

[Reads  a  letter  from  the  Graf  tendering  sympathy, 
and  conveying  the  information  that  he  is  about  to  de- 
part on  a  journey  of  long  duration.  | 

ARMGART  (after  a  slight  shudder,  bitterly.} 
The  Graf  has  much  discretion.     I  am  glad. 
He  spares  us  both  a  pain,  not  seeing  me. 
What  I  like  least  is  that  consoling  hope — 
That  empty  cup,  so  neatly  ciphered  "  Time," 
Handed  me  as  a  cordial  for  despair. 
Time — what  a  word  to  fling  as  charity  ! 
Bland,  neutral  word  for  slow,  dull- beating  pain — 
Days,  months  and  years  ! — If  I  would  wait  for  them. 

(She  takes  up  her  hat  and  puts  it  on,  then  wraps 
her  mantle  round  her.  WALPURGA  leaves  the  room.) 
Why,  this  is  but  beginning. 

(WALPURGA  re-enters.} 

Kiss  me,  dear. 

I  am  going  now — alone — out — for  a  walk. 
Say  you  will  never  wound  me  any  more 
With  such  cajolery  as  nurses  use 
To  patients  amorous  of  a  crippled  life. 
Flatter  the  blind  :  I  see. 

WTALPURGA. 

Well,  I  was  wrong. 

In  haste  to  soothe,  I  snatched  at  flickers  merely. 
Believe  me,  I  will  flatter  you  no  more. 


37 

ARMGART. 

Bear  witness,  I  am  calm.     I  read  my  lot 
As  soberly  as  if  it  were  a  tale 
Writ  by  a  creeping  feuilletonist  and  called 
"  The  Woman's  Lot :  a  Tale  of  Everyday  ; " 
A  middling  woman's,  to  impress  the  world 
With  high  superfluousness ;  her  thoughts  a  crop 
Of  chick-weed  errors  or  of  pot-herb  facts, 
Smiled  at  like  some  child's  drawing  on  a  slate. 
"  Genteel  ?  "     "  Oh  yes,  gives  lessons  ;  not  so  good 
"  As  any  man's  would  be,  but  cheaper  far." 
"  Pretty  ?  "     "  No :  yet  she  makes  a  figune  fit 
"  For  good  society.     Poor  thing,  she  sews 
"  Both  late  and  early,  turns  and  alters  all 
"  To  suit  the  changing  mode.     Some  widower 
u  Might  do  well,  marrying  her;  but  in  these  days! 
"  Well,  she  can  somewhat  eke  her  narrow  gains 
"  By  writing,  just  to  furnish  her  with  gloves 
"  And  droskies  in  the  rain.     They  print  her  things 
"  Often  for  charity."-    —Oh,  a  dog's  life ! 
A  harnessed  dog's,  that  draws  a  little  cart 
Voted  a  nuisance !     I  am  going  now. 

WALPURGA. 
Not  now,  the  door  is  locked. 

ARMGART. 
Give  me  the  key ! 

WALPURGA. 

Locked  on  the  outside.     Gretchen  has  the  key: 
She  is  gone  on  errands. 

ARMGART. 

What,  you  dare  keep  me 
Your  prisoner? 


38 

WALPURGA. 

And  have  I  not  been  yours? 
Your  wish  has  been  a  bolt  to  keep  me  in. 
Perhaps  that  middling  woman  whom  you  paint 
With  far-off  scorn  — 

ARMGART. 

I  paint  what  I  must  be ! 
What  is  my  soul  to  me  without  the  voice 
That  gave  it  freedom? — gave  it  one  grand  touch 
And  made  it  nobly  human? — Prisoned  now, 
Prisoned  in  all  the  petty  mimicries 
Called  woman's  knowledge,  that  will  fit  the  world 
As  doll-clothes  fit  a  man.     I  can  do  nought 
Better  than  what  a  million  women  do — 
Must  drudge  among  the  crowd,  and  feel  my  life 
Beating  upon  the  world  without  response, 
Beating  with  passion  through  an  insect's  horn 
That  moves  a  millet-seed  laboriously. 
If  I  would  do  it ! 

WALPURGA  (coldly). 
And  why  should  you  not? 

ARMGART  (turning  quickly). 

Because  Heaven  made  me  royal — wrought  me  out 
With  subtle  finish  towards  pre-eminence, 
Made  every  channel  of  my  soul  converge 
To  one  high  function,  and  then  flung  me  down, 
That  breaking  I  might  turn  to  subtlest  pain. 
An  inborn  passion  gives  a  rebel's  right. 
I  would  rebel  and  die  in  twenty  worlds 
Sooner  than  bear  the  yoke  of  thwarted  life, 
Each  keenest  sense  turned  into  keen  distaste. 
Hunger  not  satisfied,  but  kept  alive, 
Breathing  in  languor  half  a  century. 
All  the  world  now  is  but  a  rack  of  threads 


39 

To  twist  and  dwarf  me  into  pettiness 

And  basely  feigned  content,  the  placid  mask 

Of  woman's  misery. 

WALPURGA  (indignantly). 
Ay,  such  a  mask 

As  the  few  born  like  you  to  easy  joy, 
Cradled  in  privilege,  take  for  natural 
On  all  the  lowly  faces  that  must  look 
Upward  to  you !     What  revelation  now 
Shows  you  the  mask  or  gives  presentiment 
Of  sadness  hidden?     You  who  every  day 
These  five  years  saw  me  limp  to  wait  on  you,    , 
And  thought  the  order  perfect  which  gave  me, 
The  girl  without  pretension  to  be  aught, 
A  splendid  cousin  for  my  happiness : 
To  watch  the  night  through  when  her  brain  was  fired 
With  too  much  gladness — listen,  always  listen 
To  what  she  felt,  who  having  power  had  right 
To  feel  exorbitantly,  and  submerge 
The  souls  around  her  with  the  poured-out  flood 
Of  what  must  be  ere  she  were  satisfied! 
That  was  feigned  patience,  was  it  ?     Why  not-  love, 
Love  nurtured  even  with  that  strength  of  self 
Which  found  no  room  save  in  another's  life? 
Oh,  such  as  I  know  joy  by  negatives, 
And  all  their  deepest  passion  is  a  pang 
Till  they  accept  their  pauper's  heritage, 
And  meekly  live  from  out  the  general  store 
Of  joy  they  were  born  stripped  of.     I  accept — 
Nay,  now  would  sooner  choose  it  than  the  wealth 
Of  natures  you  call  royal,  who  can  live 
In  mere  mock  knowledge  of  their  fellows'  woe, 
Thinking  their  smiles  -may  heal  it. 

ARMGART  (tremulously]. 

Nay,  Walpurga, 


40 

I  did  not  make  a  palace  of  my  joy 
To  shut  the  world's  truth  from  me.     All  my  good 
Was  that  I  touched  the  world,  and  made  a  part 
In  the  world's  dower  of  beauty,  strength,  and  bliss ; 
It  was  the  glimpse  of  consciousness  divine 
Which  pours  out  day  and  sees  the  day  is  good. 
Now  I  am  fallen  dark  ;  I  sit  in  gloom, 
Remembering  bitterly.     Yet  you  speak  truth ; 
I  wearied  you,  it  seems;  took  all  your  help 
As  cushioned  nobles  use  a  weary  serf, 
Not  looking  at  his  face. 

WALPURGA. 

Oh,  I  but  stand 

As  a  small  symbol  for  a  mighty  sum — 
The  sum  of  claims  unpaid  for  myriad  lives ; 
I  think  you  never  set  your  loss  beside 
That  mighty  deficit.     Is  your  work  gone — 
The  prouder,  queenly  work  that  paid  itself 
And  yet  was  overpaid  with  men's  applause? 
Are  you  no  longer  chartered,  privileged, 
But  sunk  to  simple  woman's  penury, 
To  ruthless  Nature's  chary  average — 
Where  is  the  rebel's  right  for  you  alone  ? 
Noble  rebellion  lifts  a  common  load; 
But  what  is  he  who  flings  his  own  load  off 
And  leaves  his  fellows  toiling?     Rebel's  right? 
Say  rather,  the  deserter's.     Oh,  you  smiled 
From  your  clear  height  on  all  the  million  lots 
Which  yet  you  brand  as  abject. 

ARMGART. 

I  was  blind 

With  too  much  happiness:  true  vision  comes 
Only,  it  seems,  with  sorrow.     Were  there  one 
This  moment  near  me,  suffering  what  I  feel, 
And  needing  me  for  comfort  in  her  pang — 
Then  it  were  worth  the  while  to  live;  not  else. 


WALPURGA, 

One — near  you — why,  they  throng!     You  hardly  stir 
But  your  act  touches  them.     We  touch  afar. 
For  did  not  swarthy  slaves  of  yesterday 
Leap  in  their  bondage  at  the  Hebrew's  flight, 
Which  touched  them  through  the  thrice  millenial  dark? 
But  you  can  find  the  sufferer  you  need 
With  touch  less  subtle. 

ARMGART. 

Who  has  need  of  me? 

WALPURGA. 
Love  finds  the  need  it  fills.     But  you  are  hard. 

ARMGART. 

Is  it  not  you,  Walpurga,  who  are  hard? 
You  humored  all  my  wishes  till  to-day, 
When  fate  has  blighted  me. 

WALPURGA. 

You  would  not  hear 

The  "chant  of  consolation:"  words  of  hope 
Only  embittered  you.     Then  hear  the  truth — 
A  lame  girl's  truth,  whom  no  one  ever  praised 
For  being  cheerful.      u  It  is  well,"  they  said  : 
"Were  she  cross-grained,  she  could  not  be  endured." 
A  word  of  truth  from  her  had  startled  you ; 
But  you,  you  claimed  the  universe ;  nought  less 
Than  all  existence  working  in  sure  tracks 
Towards  your  supremacy.     The  wheels  might   scathe 
A  myriad  destinies — nay,  must  perforce  ; 
But  yours  they  must  keep  clear  of;  just  for  you 
The  seething  atoms  through  the  firmament 
Must  bear  a  human  heart — which  you  had  not  ! 
For  what  is  it  to  you  that1  women,  men, 
Plod,  faint,  are  weary,  and  espouse  despair 
Of  aught  but  fellowship?     Save  that  you  spurn 


42 

To  be  among  them?     Now,  then,  you  are  lame — 
Maimed,  as  you  said,  and  leveled  with  the  crowd  : 
Call  it  new  birth — birth  from  that  monstrous  Self 
Which,  smiling  down  upon  a  race  oppressed, 
Says,  "All  is  good,  for  I  am  throned  at  ease." 
Dear  Armgart — nay,  you  tremble — I  am  cruel. 

"  Middlemarch,"  completed  in  1871,  I  am  forced  to 
pass  by  without  citation  ;  and,  indeed,  it  is  a  too  per- 
fect whole  to  be  thus  marred.  Let  me  refer  you  to 
that  sublime  scene  in  "  Daniel  Deronda,"  between 
Herr  Klesmer  and  Gwendolen,  where  play  and  coun- 
terplay  of  feeling  are  so  keen,  and  close  my  quota- 
tions by  this  sketch  from  "  Daniel  Deronda,"  which  is 
the  greatest  piece  of  character  study  that  I  have  ever 
met  with. 

It  happened  that  the  very  vividness  of  Deronda's 
impressions  had  often  made  him  the  more  enigmatic 
to  his  friends,  and  had  contributed  to  an  apparent  in- 
definite.ness  in  his  sentiments.  His  early-wakened 
sensibility  and  reflectiveness  had  developed  into  a 
many-sided  sympathy,  which  threatened  to  hinder  any 
persistent  course  of  action.  As  soon  as  he  took  up 
any  antagonism,  though  only  in  thought,  he  seemed 
to  himself  like  the  Sabine  warriors  in  the  memorable 
story — with  nothing  to  meet  his  spear,  but  flesh  of  his 
flesh  and  objects  that  he  loved.  His  imagination  had 
so  wrought  itself  to  the  habit  of  seeing  things  as  they 
probably  appeared  to  others,  that  a  strong  partisan- 
ship, unless  it  were  against  an  immediate  oppression, 
had  become  an  insincerity  for  him. 

His  plenteous,  flexible  sympathy  had  ended  by  fall- 
ing into  one  current  with  that  reflective  analysis  which 
tends  to  neutralize  sympathy.  Few  men  were  able  to 


43 

keep  themselves  clearer  of  vices  than  he ;  yet  he 
hated  vices  mildly,  being  used  to  think  of  them  less 
in  the  abstract  than  as  a  part  of  mixed  human  natures 
having  an  individual  history,  which  it  was  the  bent  of 
his  mind  to  trace  with  understanding  and  pity. 

With  the  same  innate  balance  he  was  fervidly 
democratic  in  his  feeling  for  the  multitude,  and  yet, 
through  his  affections  and  imagination,  intensely  con- 
servative ;  voracious  of  speculations  on  government 
and  religion,  yet  loth  to  part  with  long-sanctioned 
forms  which,  for  him,  were  quick  with  memories  and 
sentiments  that  no  argument  could  lay  dead. 

We  fall  on  the  leaning  side ;  and  Deronda  suspect- 
ed himself  of  loving  too  well  the  losing  causes  of  the 
world.  Martyrdom  changes  sides,  and  he  was  in  dan- 
ger of  changing  with  it,  having  a  strong  repugnance 
to  taking  up  that  clue  of  success  which  the  order  of 
the  world  often  forces  upon  us  and  makes  it  treason 
against  the  common  weal  to  reject.  And  yet  his  fear 
of  falling  into  an  unreasoning,  narrow  hatred  made  a 
check  for  him.  He  apologized  for  the  heirs  of  privi- 
lege ;  he  shrank  with  dislike  from  the  loser's  bitterness 
and  the  denunciatory  tone  of  the  unaccepted  inno- 
vator. 

A  too  reflective  and  diffusive  sympathy  was  in  dan- 
ger of  paralyzing  in  him  that  indignation  against  wrong 
and  that  selectness  of  fellowship  which  are  the  .con- 
ditions of  moral  force  ;  and  in  the  last  few  years  of 
confirmed  manhood  he  had  become  so  keenly  aware 
of  this  that  what  he  most  longed  for  was  either  some 
external  event,  or  some  inward  light,  that  would  urge 
him  into  a  definite  line  of  action,  and  compress  his 
wandering  energy. 

He  was  ceasing  to  care  for  knowledge — he  had  no 
ambition  for  practice  —  unless  they  could  both  be 
gathered  up  into  one  current  with  his  emotions ;  and 


44 

he  dreaded,  as  if  it  were  a  dwelling-place  of  lost  souls, 
that  dead  anatomy  of  culture  which  turns  the  uni- 
verse into  a  mere  ceaseless  answer  to  queries,  and 
knows,  not  everything,  but  every  thing  else  about 
every  thing — as  if  one  should  be  ignorant  of  nothing 
concerning  the  scent  of  violets  except  the  scent  itself 
for  which  one  had  no  nostril. 

But  how  and  whence  was  the  needed  event  to 
come? — the  influence  that  would  justify  partiality, 
and  make  him  what  he  longed  to  be,  yet  was  unable 
to  make  himself — an  organic  part  of  social  life,  in- 
stead of  roaming  in  it  like  a  yearning  disembodied 
spirit,  stirred  with  a  vague  social  passion,  but  without 
fixed  local  habitation  to  render  fellowship  real  ?  To 
make  a  little  difference  for  the  better  was  what  he  was 
not  content  to  live  without ;  but  how  make  it  ? 

It  is  one  thing  to  see  your  road,  another  to  cut  it. 
He  found  some  of  the  fault  in  his  birth  and  the  way 
he  had  been  brought  up,  which  had  laid  no  special 
demands  on  him  and  given  him  no  fixed  relationship 
except  one  of  a  doubtful  kind ;  but  he  did  not  at- 
tempt to  hide  from  himself  that  he  had  fallen  into  a 
meditative  numbness,  and  was  gliding  farther  and 
farther  from  that  life  of  practically  energetic  senti- 
ment which  he  would  have  proclaimed  (if  he  had  been 
inclined,  to  proclaim  anything)  to  be  the  best  of  all 
life,  and  for  himself  the  only  life  worth  living.  He 
wanted  some  way  of  keeping  emotion  and  its  pro- 
geny of  sentiments — which  make  the  savors  of  life  — 
substantial  and  strong,  in  the  face  of  a  reflectiveness 
that  threatened  to  nullify  all  differences.  To  pound 
the  objects  of  sentiment  into  small  dust,  yet  keep  sen- 
timent alive  and  active,  was  something  like  the  famous 
recipe  for  making  cannon — to  first  take  a  round  hole 
and  then  inclose  it  with  iron ;  whatever  you  do,  keep- 
ing fast  hold  of  your  round  hole. 


45 

Yet  how  distinguish  what  our  will  may  wisely  save 
in  its  completeness  from  the  heaping  of  cat-mummies 
and  the  expensive  cult  of  enshrined  putrefactions  ? 

Something  like  this  was  the  common  under-current 
in  Deronda's  mind,  while  he  was  reading  law,  or  im- 
perfectly attending  to  polite  conversation. 

Meanwhile,  he  had  not  set  about  one  function  in 
particular  with  zeal  and  steadiness. 

Not  an  admirable  experience  to  be  proposed  as  an 
ideal ;  but  a  form  of  struggle  before  break  of  day 
which  some  young  men  since  the  patriarch  have  had 
to  pass  through,  with  more  or  less  of  bruising,  if  not 
laming. 

And  what  shall  I  say  of  those  great,  original  chap- 
ter-headings which,  like  overtures  to  classic  operas, 
swiftly  prelude  the  harmonies  to  come  !  Ah,  now  I 
repent  me  of  my  profanation.  I  have  torn  a  paltry 
few  of  the  jewels  from  the  diadem  and  thought  to 
make  them  shine  with  the  combined  lustre  of  the  per- 
fect whole. 

I  have  cited  these  passages — to  which  you  have  so 
generously  listened — as  examples  of  the  profoundest 
philosophic  analysis.  And  here  let  me  guard  you 
against  the  danger  of  conceiving  of  this  analysis  sim- 
ply in  its  universality  and  its  breadth.  To  be  appre- 
ciated, it  must  be  viewed  in  its  far  grander  dimension 
of  depth.  No  effort  to  estimate  the  analytic  work  of 
George  Eliot  would  deserve  the  name  of  criticism 
which  did  not  chiefly  dwell  on  its  profoundness,  and 
yet  it  is  just  this  which  it  is  so  difficult  to  portray,  so 
almost  impossible  to  realize  ;  for,  unfortunately,  the 
vastness  which  chiefly  strikes  the  human  mind  is  the 


vastness  of  surface.  When  we  think  of  the  ocean  as 
the  symbol  of  power,  we  conceive  of  its  area  as 
stretching  from  pole  to  pole,  and  not  of  its  mighty, 
unfathomable  depths  whose  midnight  blackness,  wrap- 
ped in  solitude  eternal  and  profound,  hath  never  been 
reached  by  the  plummet  nor,  possibly,  by  any  form  of 
life.  And  all  the  more  would  I  dwell  on  this  quality 
of  depth,  because  it  has  been  imputed  to  George 
Eliot  as  a  great  artistic  fault.  Writers  of  the  highest 
intelligence  and  culture,  who  would  not  have  tolerated 
for  an  instant  any  superficiality  on  her  part  as  a  phil- 
osopher, have  denied  her  right  to  be  profound  as  a 
novelist,  and  contend  that  the  novel  has  nothing  to 
do  with  analysis  in  any  form,  much  less  with  that  of 
motive  and  of  soul.  Alas  for  the  ruts  of  custom  and 
for  the  intellect  that  would  shake  off  the  bondage  of 
a  thousand  years  !  As  if,  indeed,  the  term  novel  had 
become  irrevocably  absolute  !  As  if  some  divine  Fiat 
had  decreed  that  it  should  be  unchangeably  fixed  and 
construed  by  the  petty  standards  of  precedent  shallow- 
ness  and  imbecility  !  As  if  the  work,  could  dictate  to 
the  workman,  or  genins,  even  in  novel  writing,  be 
limited  by  aught  save  the  capacity  to  achieve  !  No,  it 
is  the  -proudest  attribute  of  our  humanity — prouder 
than  the  right  of  trial  by  jury,  or  the  legacies  of 
Magna  Charta — that  there  are  no  vested  interests  in 
mediocrity,  that  we  are  gifted  with  the  power  and  the 
right  to  be  perfect  and  that  naught  can  come  between 
us  and  perfection  save  ourselves.  And  why  should 
the  novel  be  an  exception  to  this  ruJe  of  universal 


47 

progress  ?  If  it  have  been  degraded  in  the  past,  does 
that  make  it  a  crime,  or  does  it  not  rather  make  it  an 
additional  virtue  in  her  who  would  greatly  lift  it  from 
its  degradation  ?  And,  if  this  be  so,  and  there  be  no 
necessary,  organic  element  of  inferiority  in  the  novel 
as  such,  why  should  it  not  treat  of  the  motives  and 
the  souls  of  men  as  well,  or  even  better,  than  of  their 
mere  outward  actions?  "Perfectly  true,"  reply  the 
critics  ;  "  but  we  do  not  differ  from  you  here,  and  you 
are  only  knocking  down  wooden  men  of  your  own 
setting  up;  for  nobody  disputes  the  right  of  the  novel, 
in  common  with  all  things,  to  progress  and  improve- 
ment ;  but  what  are  progress  and  improvement  ?  We 
do  not  take  issue  with  you  on  the  fact,  but  merely  on 
•what  constitutes  the  fact,  and  the  real  question  is  this  : 
is  the  attempt  to  apply  the  methods  of  analysis  to  the 
secret  springs  of  action  a  step  in  advance  in  romance 
writing,  or  is  it  only  a  step  aside  and,  therefore,  in 
effect,  backward?" 

Ah,  my  conservative  friends,  can  it  be  that  the  his- 
tory of  the  body — all  trace  and  influence  of  which  is 
lost  in  a  few  years  or  generations — is  greater  than  the 
history  of  the  soul  which  perisheth  not  and  whose 
influence  is  felt  forever?  Can  it  be  that  the  pathos 
of  mere  accident  and  incident,  in  even  the  most 
pathetic  of  lives,  has  exercised  a  deeper  influence  on 
the  world  than  the  pathos  in  those  one  or  two  mar- 
velous soul  struggles  that  have  descended  to  us  on  the 
canvas  of  a  few  master  painters?  And  yet  pathos, 
above  all  emotions,  speaks  to  us  from  the  surface  and 


48 

through  action.  Think  you  that  all  the  delineations 
of  all  the  innumerable  "Fields  of  the  Cloth  of  Gold" 
that  have  existed  since  the  beginning  of  time  have 
produced  the  effect  in  this  world  of  ours  that  has 
resulted  from  the  artless  narration  of  that  mighty 
psychologic  agony  beneath  the  olive  branches  of  the 
Jewish  Garden  ?  Ah,  believe  me,  in  novel  writing,  as 
in  painting,  there  is  much  in  the  choice  of  a  subject ! 
"  But,"  continue  our  objectors,  "the  essence  of  a 
novel  is  plot,  and  all  effects  must  be  grouped  around 
and  built  upon  and  be  subordinate  to  the  on  e  central, 
never-to-be-lost-sight-of  thread  of  personal  intrigue,  and 
this  so  called  scientific  analysis  of  the  mind  and  soul 
is  fatal  to  the  continuity  of  the  plot."  True,  my 
friends.  I  do  not  deny  that  plot  is  the  foundation 
of  novel  writing  ;  but  suffer  me,  in  turn,  to  join  issue 
with  you  on  the  meaning  of  terms  and  to  ask  you 
what  is  plot  ?  Is  plot  only  of  the  surface,  superficial  ? 
Is  it  only  to  be  found  in  the  momentary  flashing  of 
the  eye,  or  the  dreamy  dallying  of  amorousness,  or 
the  look  of  hatred,  or  the  dagger  thrust,  or  the 
poisoned  chalice  ?  Dwelleth  it  only  with  the  assassin 
and  the  lover  ?  Or  is  there  plot  in  the  struggles  which 
have  no  voice,  but  have  a  record  more  piercing  and 
profound  than  the  momentary  cry  which  the  night 
wind  beareth  away  into  the  great  unread  forever  ? 
Is  there  a  plot  of  action  and  yet  no  plot  of  the  mind 
and  of  the  soul  from  which  all  action  springs?  Is 
there  a  plot  of  the  human,  the  animal,  the  bestial 
elements  of  life,  and  no  plot  of  those  which  are  made 


49 

in  the  likeness  of  a  God  ?  Are  there  not  heroes  and 
heroines  upon  the  battle-fields  of  thought  and  emotion, 
whose  conquests  and  defeats  may  have  some  interest 
and  some  importance,  even  when  compared  with  those 
of  Alexander  the  Great  or  Joan  of  Arc  ?  Can  not 
even  the  "artistic"  novelist  spare  us  a  little  time  from 
the  narration  of  love  and  murder  for  the  analysis  of 
the  man  "  Doom-gifted  with  long  resonant  conscious- 
ness and  perilous  heightening  of  the  sentient  soul?'7 
Does  not  the  great  world  lying  around  you,  which  is 
struggling  to-day  beneath  the  accumulated  burden  of 
thousands  of  years  of  ignorance  and  superficiality 
and  which  has  little  time  and  less  inclination  for  self- 
study,  need,  above  all  things,  an  every-day  philosophy 
of  the  self-conscious  ? 

At  least,  so  hath  our  novelist  thought,  and  she  has 
aimed  to  give  us  the  life  which  is  not  written,  but 
vvhich  is  implied  in  every  human  existence.  And,  with 
that  conscientiousness  which  so  characterizes  all  her 
work,  she  has  not  rested  short  of  her  ideal.  She  has 
carried  her  analysis  from  life  itself  into  the  inmost  re- 
cesses of  consciousness,  both  objective  and  subjec- 
tive, and  has  given  to  the  world  a  series  of  mighty 
soul-plots.  Preceding  novelists  have  considered  them- 
selves at  the  bottom  when  they  have  sought  to  de- 
lineate that  portion  of  our  lives  which  is  unknown  to 
others,  but  George  Eliot  portrays  that  portion  which 
is  unknown  even  to  ourselves  ;  for  it  must  be  remem- 
bered that  the  origin  and  motive  of  a  great  deal  of 
what  even  we  ourselves  think  or  do  is  either  unknown 


to  us  or  ignored  by  us,  and  it  is  the  veil  of  this  inmost 
unknown  that  George  Eliot  has  lifted.  This  it  is 
which  makes  her,  ever  and  anon,  appear  from  behind 
the  scenes,  in  those  sublime  passages  of  exposition  to 
which  her  critics  object,  in  the  character,  as  it  were, 
of  a  Greek  Chorus.  And,  yet,  she  is  wholly  unlike 
the  Greek  Chorus  in  this,  that  she  very  rarely — I 
might  say  never — moralizes,  but  contents  herself  strictly 
with  the  invariable  sequence  of  cause  and  effect. 

And  this  leads  me  to  notice  that  other  vital  element 
which  impresses  her  analysis  quite  as  much  with  the 
stamp  of  true  philosophy  as  its  depth,  and  that  is  its 
consistency.  I  can  conceive  of  no  truer  test  of  the 
philosopher  than  this ;  for  I  can  not  conceive  of  a 
philosophy  which  is  ever  unphilosophical.  And  ob- 
serve how  great  was  the  peril  which  impended  over 
her  from  the  very  fact  of  this  consistency  itself.  It  is 
easy  and  delightful  to  sit  in  one's  closet  and  weave 
philosophic  webs.  Not  one  critic  in  a  thousand  will 
be  able,  and  not  one  in  ten  thousand  will  be  willing 
to  undertake  the  laborious  and  painful  task  of  practi- 
cal verification.  We  are  dealing  in  the  abstract,  and 
in  the  abstract,  it  is  difficult  to  indict  and  next  to  im- 
possible to  convict  of  perjury.  But  George  Eliot  un- 
dertook to  do  what  neither  novelist  nor  philosopher 
had  attempted  before.  She  stepped  boldly  forth  from 
the  closet  into  the  forum  and  the  market  place,  and 
carried  abstraction  into  the  daily  life  of  the  multitude. 
A  million  eyes  are  upon  her  now.  A  million  minds 
which  could  never  have  apprehended,  much  less  weigh- 


51 

ed,  the  justness  of  an  analysis  in  the  abstract  x.  and  y., 
will  comprehend  and  critically  judge  that  analysis  in 
the  concrete  Smith  and  Jones. 

It  seemed  almost  impossible  to  hope  for  her  a  dual 
success,  almost  incredible  that  she  should  satisfy  both 
the  philosophers  and  the  world,  almost  chimerical  to 
suppose  that  she  should  succeed  both  on  the  side  of 
theory  and  of  practice.  Yet  I  have  told  you  what 
the  philosophers  think  of  her  work,  and  every  day  is 
bringing  forth  stronger  and  more  emphatic  evidence 
of  the  opinion  of  the  people.  I  have  said  that  it  was 
a  position  of  peril  for  George  Eliot ;  but  what  is  the 
peril  of  the  individual  when  compared  with  the  peril 
which  was  impending  over  mankind?  If  only  she 
could  have  failed,  the  bursting  bubble  would  have  been 
scarce  worthy  of  notice  in  the  rushing  tide  of  life,  and 
the  great  caravansary,  as  it  moved,  would  have  paid 
little  heed  to  the  one  feeble  cry  in  the  mighty  chorus 
of  individual  despair.  But  a  greater  peril  was  bound 
up  in  hers.  It  was  the  peril  which  always,  impends 
over  the  hopes  of  human  progress  when  a  great,  uni- 
versal soul  that  has  identified  itself  with  the  onward 
march  of  man,  and  has  seized  the  standard  of  the 
forlorn  hope,  grows  sick  and  faints  beneath  the  heat 
and  burden  of  the  day.  It  was  peril  kindred  to  that 
which  impended  over  the  world  in  the  silent,  unheed- 
ed hours  of  that  momentous  Oriental  night  when, 
from  agonized  lips,  broke  forth  the  cry,  "  My  Father, 
if  it  be  possible,  let  this  cup  pass  from  me,"  and  which 
was  dispelled  by  the  immortal  peroration,  "  Neverthe- 
less, not  my  will,  but  thine,  be  done  !" 


52 

Indeed,  I  candidly  believe  that  no  intellectual  fail- 
ure of  this,  or  of  many  centuries,  would  have  been 
comparable  in  its  disastrous  effects  on  human  progress 
to  the  failure,  either  on  the  side  of  theory  or  of  prac- 
tice, of  George  Eliot ;  and  all  the  more  so,  because 
that  failure  could  not  have  occurred,  on  the  practical 
side,  at  least,  without  circumstances  of  attendant  lu- 
dicrousness  that  would  have  been  a  fatal  barrier,  for 
many  a  year,  to  the  growth  of  philosophic  methods 
among  the  multitude ;  for,  of  all  the  things  to  which 
the  multitude  is  most  sensitive,  that  thing  is  ridicule, 
and  especially  ridicule  when  applied  to  those  whom  it 
is  likely  to  regard  as  visionary  theorists  who  have  la- 
boriously waded  beyond  their  depths  and  are  flounder- 
ing among  the  practical  quicksands  of  every-day  life 
that  are  only  to  be  learned  by  experience.  But,  in 
spite  of  her  intense,  conscientious,  logical  consist- 
ency, she  has  not  failed  on  either  side,  and  another 
outpost  has  been  carried  in  the  ceaseless  advance. 
So  universal  and  profound  has  been  this  philosophic 
consistency,  that  it  is  said,  on  all  hands,  that  she  is  a 
"  fatalist."  Yet  what  do  we  mean  when  we  speak  of 
the  "  fatalism  of  George  Eliot  ?  "  We  can  only  mean 
this  :  that  unswerving  fidelity  to  the  connection  be- 
tween antecedent  and  consequent,  between  cause  and 
effect,  which  paints  things  not  as  they  should  be,  but 
as  they  are — as  they  must  have  been.  No  more  can 
be  meant  than  this.  It  can  never  be  said  that  she  is 
a  "  fatalist "  in  any  such  sense  as  that  she  controls  or 
limits  the  development  of  her  characters  or  plots,  or 


53 

presides  over  them  in  the  capacity  of  a  Fate  or  Des- 
tiny. It  is  the  very  essence,  the  crowning  glory  of 
her  philosophic  system,  and  that  which  distinguishes 
her  from  all  other  writers  of  romance,  that  she  does 
just  the  reverse,  that  she  permits  to  all  situations  and 
persons  full  liberty  for  good  or  evil,  under  the  condi- 
tions of  their  being,  and  "  fatalist "  becomes  with  her 
not  a  term  of  reproach,  but  her  chief  title  to  scien- 
tific reverence. 

I  have  said  that  George  Eliot  seldom,  if  ever,  mor- 
alizes. Pray  understand  me  in  the  orthodox  and  nar- 
row sense  of  the  term  !  For  what  moralizing  can  be 
so  wise,  so  lofty,  or  so  potent  as  that  which  portrays 
the  unvarying  and  invariable  sequence  of  evil  after 
sin,  and  of  good  after  virtue?  It  is  true  that  she  does 
not,  like  the  Greek  Chorus,  invoke,  with  childish 
puerility,  the  fitful  wrath  or  the  fitful  mercy  of  un- 
known force;  but  it  is  also  true  that  she  continually 
exposes  the  inevitable  operation  of  those  laws  which 
are  infinitely  just,  because  infinitely  uniform.  But 
the  exposition  of  this  necessary  connection  between 
cause  and  effect,  in  the  development  of  character,  has 
grated  upon  the  ears  of  many  hearers.  They  have 
mistaken  the  profession  of  the  natural,  of  the  inevit- 
able, for  the  profession  of  the  misanthropic,  of  the 
despairing,  and  they  can  not  forgive  a  writer  who  has 
paid  no  tribute  to  the  supernatural  sources  of  recuper- 
ation and  reform.  But  the  forgiveness  will  come  ere 
long  in  bounteous  measure.  The  day  will  be  when 
all  will  regard  the  philosophy  of  inevitable  evolution 


54 

as  the  loftiest  of  morality,  as  the  most  glorious  of 
creeds,  but  it  will  not  come  until  we  have  taken  many 
upward  steps;  for  the  inevitable  can  never  be  an  ac- 
ceptable law  to  those  whose  looks  are  downward  or 
backward  bent.  Moral  empire,  no  more  than  physi- 
cal empire,  can  find  its  perfection  in  the  worship  of 
dead  ancestors ;  for 

"  Our  life  is  onward,  and  our  very  dust 

Is  longing  for  its  change,  that  it  may  take 
New  combinations;  that  the  seed  may  break 
From  its  dark  thraldom,  where  it  lies  in  trust 
For  mightier  resurrection." 

And  so,  they  have  mistaken  George  Eliot's  highest 
philosophy  for  morbidness  and  gloom,  and,  having  no 
better  word  at  hand,  have  called  it  "fatalism."  But 
the  term  is  misleading,  and  should  be  discarded.  The 
true  word  of  description  would  have  been  evolutionist; 
for  she  is,  par  excellence,  the  evolutionist  of  romance. 
Not  even  the  pages  of  Buckle,  of  Darwin,  or  of  Hux- 
ley, more  strongly  illustrate  the  non-interference  theory 
of  life.  Some  have  said  that  this  argues  George  Eliot 
without  a  God.  By  no  means.  But  it  does  argue 
her  with  a  God  too  infinitely,  inexorably  just  to  com- 
pel us  into  or  to  hinder  us  from  virtue.  With  her,  all 
character  development  is  the  gradual,  legitimate  un- 
folding of  the  parent  germ.  (Ah,  how  suggestive  of 
the  care  that  should  be  lavished  on  the  germ  ! )  And 
nothing  in  her  pages  is  more  beautifully  philosophic 
than  this  constant  tendency  of  the  individual  to  self- 


55 

evolution  along  the  individual  lines.  And  what  a 
chapter  of  itself  might  be  written  upon  that  profound 
philosophic  spectacle,  so  constantly  visible  in  her 
writings,  of  the  rectangular  struggle  between  the  direct 
force  of  individual  evolution  and  the  lateral  force  of 
the  environment  producing,  in  the  end,  the  resultant 
diagonal  of  actual  life.  In  fact,  the  very  basis  and 
emblem  of  all  character  study  with  her  is  the  parallel- 
ogram of  forces. 

And  now,  having  cited  examples  of  the  analysis  of 
George  Eliot,  and  having  dwelt  upon  the  profound- 
ness and  the  consistency  of  this  analysis,  permit  me  a 
deduction  or  two.  From  this  analysis  constantly  con- 
tinued, has  grown  that  intense  self-consciousness  which 
exists  in  all  her  later  works;  but  it  is  that  well-balanced 
self-consciousness  which  Herbert  Spencer  speaks  of  as 
the  attendant  blessing  of  a  pure  philosophy,  and  it 
has  brought  with  it  none  of  that  dark  morbidness 
which  has  been  so  conspicuous  in  the.  writings  of 
Charlotte  Bronte.  It  is  the  self-consciousness  of 
Shakspeare,  of  a  mind  too  universal  to  feed  upon 
itself  alone,  and,  like  the  scorpion  girt  by  fire,  perish 
of  its  own  sting. 

Hence  comes  also  hei  subjectiveness  of  mind. 
When  you  consider  the  enormous  variety  of  subjects 
and  of  phases  of  life  of  which  she  has  treated,  and 
treated  to  perfection,  which  must  have  been  utterly 
inaccessible,  by  personal  experience,  to  one  of  her  sex, 
you  can  infer  how  much  must  have  been  woven  from 
the  consciousness  within. 


56 

Hence,  too,  as  might  have  been  expected,  she  is 
relatively  deficient  in  humor,  falling,  like  George  Sand, 
her  great  French  representative,  far  short,  in  this  re- 
spect, of  Dickens,  or  Thackeray,  or  Dumas  and  a 
great  host  of  inferior  writers.  In  wit,  on  the  other 
hand,  she  excels,  rising  at  times  to  a  very  high  stand- 
ard. Indeed,  this  is  the  form  under  which  the  ludi- 
crous chiefly  presents  itself  to  her  mind. 

Hence,  too,  comes  her  vast  power  of  sarcasm,  which 
is  of  the  most  refined  and  cutting  type,  not  being  of 
the  brutal,  positive  sort,  but  of  the  negative,  leaving 
much  more  to  be  inferred  than  is  actually  said.  A 
striking  parallel  might  be  drawn,  in  this  respect,  be- 
tween herself  and  the  remarkable  form  of  negative 
sarcasm  which  has  made  the  columns  of  the  New 
York  "Nation"  so  justly  famous. 

Hence,  too,  her  tendency  to  epigrams,  which  glitter 
through  her  pages  with  a  jeweled  flash,  and  which  have 
made  the  name  of  Mrs.  Poyser  as  a  household  word; 
and  hence  that  vast  storehouse  of  proverbs  which  she 
has  amassed  against  all  future  time. 

Hence,  too,  comes  the  frequent  subordination  of 
the  historic  or  narrative  sequence  of  plot  to  the  logi- 
cal sequence  of  character  development;  and  from  this 
last  results  that  constant  breaking  off  of  the  thread  of 
the  story  (an  experiment  so  perilous  to  dramatic  unity 
and  climax)  for  what,  at  times,  seems  the  almost  wan- 
ton pleasure  of  disquisition — a  peculiarity  which  made 
the  orations  of  Burke  so  tiresome  to  his  hearers,  and 
so  valuable  for  their  mighty  meditations  to  posterity— 


57 

a  license  of  genius  which  deifies  the  great  masters,  but 
covers  with  ridicule  the  common  herd — a  rock  on 
which  shoals  of  imitators  will  go  high  and  dry ;  for 
George  Eliot,  like  all  epoch  makers,  will  have  imi- 
tators without  number. 

Hence,  too,  comes  her  delicate  sensibility  to  artistic 
effect.  Nothing  with  her  is  wholly  glare  or  shadow  ; 
but  like  all  great  painters,  where  falleth  light,  falls 
also  darker  shade.  And  from  this  last,  results  the 
great  difficulty  of  all  hero-worship  in  connection  with 
her  novels — a  peculiarity  from  which,  I  am  per- 
suaded, springs  her  unpopularity  with  the  mass  of 
readers;  for  I  am  reluctantly  compelled  to  bqlieve, 
after  a  good  deal  of  careful  attention,  that,  to  the 
majority,  she  has  never  been  thoroughly  popular- 
that  they  have  respected  rather  than  liked,  feareol 
rather  than  understood  her;  and  that  many,  especially 
of  the  regulation  novel  readers,  know  little  of  her  save 
the  titles  of  her  principal  characters,  and  only  con- 
tinue to  peruse  her,  with  much  inward  griping,  be- 
cause it  does  not  do  to  seem  wholly  ignorant  of  the 
prevailing  fashion.  For  the  multitude  of  to-day  loves 
through  its  sympathies,  and  sympathy  comes,  in  fact 
as  well  as  in  derivation,  from  sun  and  pathos,  suffering 
together  with,  and  the  multitude  does  not  as  yet  suffer 
along  with,  or  together  with,  mental  and  psychical 
heroes.  Its  breast  heaves  to  the  audible  and  not  the 
spiritual  sob.  And  this  does  not  conflict  with  what 
I  have  elsewhere  said  of  George  Eliot's  success  in 
dealing  with  the  practical  side  of  life.  She  has  been 


a  success,  indeed  ;  but  not  what  is  known  as  a  popular 
success.  She  has,  in  truth,  succeeded ;  but  it  has 
been,  not  because  of  her  popularity,  but  in  spite  of 
her  unpopularity.  She  has  commanded,  not  won,  the 
admiration  of  the  masses.  The  exquisite  coating  of 
every-day  life  with  which  her  pills  are  sugared  over 
has  not  been  able  to  conceal  the  as-yet-to-many  naus- 
eous flavor  of  the  inevitable  philosophic  dose  within. 
Just  when  the  average  palate  has  prepared  itself  for 
sweetmeats — ugh  !  the  bitterness  of  the  physic  will 
out.  Just  when  the  average  sentimental  eye  has  com- 
posed itself  for  green  pastures  and  the  waters  of  com- 
fort— Lo,  the  yawning  chasm  before  which  it  recoils  ! 
And  it  is  better  so  for  her  future  influence  ;  for  a 
universal,  unqualified  welcome  would  have  been  strong 
presumptive  evidence  of  swift  decay,  and  lasting  phil- 
osophic triumphs  are  not  to  be  won  along  pathways 
strewn  with  flowers. 

From  this  habit  of  analysis,  too,  come  her  simplic- 
ity and  directness  of  style,  so  admirably  .illustrated, 
for  example,  in  the  opening  narrative  of  "  Felix  Holt." 
I  know  that  many  consider  her  involved,  and  grumble 
severely  thereat,  making  the  customary  remarks  about 
the  shortness  of  human  life,  etc.;  but  that  is  because 
they  get  entangled  in  the  thoughts,  not  in  the  words. 
The  water  is  not  too  muddy,  but  too  deep.  Did  any 
one  ever  think  of  reproaching  Laplace  because  he 
took  an  octavo  page  and  more  to  express  in  algebraic 
formula  the  orbit  of  the  moon.  No,  my  friends, 
every  novel  that  is  worth  reading  is  worth  rereading, 


59 

and   it    is   the   best   sign   of   our  incapacity  to  enjoy 
George  Eliot  that  we  do  not  delight  in  the  re-perusal. 

And  now,  with  these  hasty  suggestions,  I  commit 
to  you  the  analytic  work  of  this  great  chemist  of  fic- 
tion, whose  crucible  no  human  ore,  no  matter  how 
refractory,  has  been  able  to  withstand.  That  her  in- 
fluence on  the  world  of  thinkers  will  be  vast,  I  doubt 
not,  and  by  degrees  she  will,  through  them,  be  assimi- 
lated by  the  dwellers  of  the  valjey  and  the  plain. 
No  one  can  doubt  this  who  has  watched  the  influence 
exerted,  in  our  own  country,  by  somewhat  similar 
means,  and  through  similar  agency,  of  the  New  York 
"  Nation." 

I  can  not  terminate  this  paper,  in  which  I  have 
dwelt  upon  the  intellectual  greatness  of  George  Eliot, 
without  pausing  for  an  instant  to  notice  her  moral 
greatness.  Hers  has  not  been  one  of  those  melan- 
choly instances  of  the  union  of  superabundant  intel- 
lect with  deficient  moral  sense ;  but,  in  all  things,  her 
soul  has  been  the  fitting  companion  of  her  mind. 
The  towering  summit  of  her  genius  has  been  crowned 
with  the  driven  snow  of  a  spotless  and  eternal  purity. 
Take  "  Adam  Bede,"  for  example.  The  whole  of  its 
plot  turns  upon  an  incident  the  most  difficult  for  deli- 
cate and  refined  manipulation.  What  glorious,  what 
almost  inevitable  opportunities  there  were  here  for 
morbid  pruriency  !  Quelle  chance  perdue,  as  the  wri- 
ters of  the  French  school  would  exclaim !  And,  yet, 
what  is  the  only  evidence  given  us  of  the  crisis  upon 
which  the  story  hinges  ?  Why,  Arthur  swiftly  stoop- 


6o 


ing-  to  conceal  from  Adam  a  tiny  silk  handkerchief 
found  within  the -"Hermitage."  Then,  too,  take  the 
relationship  of  Tito  and  of  Tessa,  so  delicately  sketched 
that  one  hardly  more  than  half  suspects  the  true  na- 
ture of  the  intrigue  until  the  denouement  is  reached. 
Our  author  will  not  avail  herself  of  even  the  license 
of  Italian  manners — the  favorite  field  of  so  many  a 
prurient  fancy — to  depart  from  her  rigidity  of  refine- 
ment. And,  then,  far  over  and  above  all  the  special 
instances  that  might  be  given,  take  the  constant  and 
omnipresent  tendency  of  her  lofty  spirit  to  leave  the 
reeking  fens  and  morasses,  where  earth-born  imagin- 
ations delight  to  dwell,  and  its  unvarying  love  for 
heavenward  soaring  into  the  light  of  day.  Who  can 
mistake  the  intense  sympathy  with  which  she  follows 
the  pagan  Romola  upward  to  the  verge  of  sublimity, 
the  -Christian  Dinah  Morris  to  the  throne  of  God  ! 
Who  can  mistake  the  love  and  sympathy  with  which 
she  follows  the  evolution  of  all  good ! 

I  had  greatly  hoped  to  have  been  able  to  have  in- 
stituted a  comparison  between  the  subject  of  our  .dis- 
cussion and  George  Sand — a  comparison  which  might 
have  been  made  interesting  in  so  many  points — to 
have  been  able  to  have  compared  those  great  mister- 
pieces  of  "  Romola  "  and  "  Consuelo,"  wherein  are 
embodied  the  two  loftiest  ideals  of  an  exalted  wom- 
anhood. I  had  greatly  hoped  to  have  been  able  to 
compare  the  pathos  of  George  Eliot  with  the  all- 
moving  pathos  of  that  mighty  magician  beneath  the 
touch  of  whose  divine  rod  the  waters  have  so  often 


6i 


gushed  from  stony  hearts — a  pathos  which  it  resembles 
in  many  ways  besides  its  exquisite  simplicity.  But  I 
can  not  tax  your  most  generous  patience  to  such  an 
extent.  I  pause,  in  conclusion,  merely  to  say  a  word 
with  reference  to  George  Eliot's  school  of  ethics.  And, 
here,  howr  striking  a  fact  meets  us  at  the  outset. 
Turning  to  the  period  of  her  scarcely  budding  woman- 
hood, we  find  her,  in  1846,  eleven  years  before  she 
entered  the  world  of  fiction,  publishing  a  translation 
of  Straus'  "  Life  of  Jesus,"  and,  eight  years  later,  a 
translation  of  Feuerbach's  "  Essence  of  Christianity." 
Ah,  howr  suggestive  of  that  terrible  conflict — so 
many  half-healed  scars  of  which  are  visible  in  her 
great  masterpieces — which  must  have  gone  on  within 
her  before  she  turned  away  from  the  summit  of  Cal- 
vary, convinced  that,  for  her,  at  least,  it  bore  no  les- 
son of  saving  truth  !  Ah,  how  desperately  she  must 
have  struggled  before  she  consented  to  step  forth  from 
under  the  shadow  of  the  Hebrew  Tree !  But  the 
shadow  is  upon  her  still,  as  it  'is  upon  all  souls  that 
are  great  enough  to  feel  and  magnanimous  enough 
to  share  the  burden  of  human  sin ;  for  the  cross — ay, 
even  the  cross  of  Calvary —  corneth  not  from  without, 
but  from  within,  is  not  framed  of  wood  and  spikes, 
but  of  that  conscience  which  is  too  divinely  pure  to 
suffer  the* whisper  of  reproach!  And  she  passed  down- 
ward from  the  hallowed  Mount  with  the  cry  of  the 
"  Lama  Sabacthani ! "  within  her,  that  cry  which 
bursts  forth  in  the  sublime  invocation  of  Dinah  Mor- 
ris ;  "  Oh,  Thou  who  hast  entered  into  that  black 


62 


darkness,  where  God  is  not,  and  hast  uttered  the  cry 
of  the  forsaken  !"-  She  passed  downward,  resolved  to 
find  and  to  preserve,  among  the  sons  of  men,  that 
heaven  which  she  had  not  found  beyond  the  stars, 
and  despair  gives  place  to  a  deeper  and  more  universal 
faith.  A  heaven  dawns  upon  her  which  is  not  in  the 
clouds,  but  upon  the  earth  and  in  the  human  destiny 
of  her  fellow-beings.  She  sees  that  men  have,  within 
themselves,  the  capacity  to  work  out  that  heaven,  that 
no  task  of  brick-making  without  straw  has  been  allot- 
ted to  them,  but  that  the  materials  for  the  finished 
clay  are  about  us  in  rich  abundance.  To  her  ardent 
nature,  yearning  above  all  things,  after  good,  the  possi- 
bility becomes  the  certainty  of  perfection  and,  in  the 
exaltation  of  joy,  her  whole  soul  bursts  forth  in  that 
grand  hymn,  "  O,  may  I  join  the  Choir  invisible." 

Note  how  characteristic,  how  profoundly  suggestive 
is  the  line  which  precedes  it.  It  is  that  superb  utter- 
ance of  the  intensely  religious,  reverential  soul  of 
Cicero  :  "  Longum  illud  tempus,  quum  non  ero,  magis 
me  movet  quam  hoc  exiguum" — that  mighty  space, 
when  I  shall  not  exist,  more  deeply  moves  me  than 
this  paltry  present.  Fitting  prelude  to  that  which 
follows. 

O  may  I  join  the  choir  invisible 
Of  those  immortal  dead  who  live  again 
In  minds  made  better  by  their  presence  ;  live 
In  pulses  stirred  to  generosity, 
In  deeds  of  daring  rectitude,  in  scorn 
For  miserable  aims  that  end  with  self, 
In  thoughts  sublime  that  pierce  the  night  like  stars, 


UNIVERSE 


And  with  their  mild  persistence  urge  man's  search 
To  vaster  issues. 

So  to  live  is  heaven  ; 
To  make  undying  music  in  the  world, 
Breathing  as  beauteous  order  that  controls 
With  growing  sway  the  growing  life  of  man. 
So  we  inherit  that  sweet  purity 
For  which  we  struggled,  failed  and  agonized 
With  widening  retrospect  that  bred  despair. 
Rebellious  flesh  that  would  not  be  subdued, 
A  vicious  parent  shaming  still  its  child 
Poor  anxious  penitence,  is  quick  dissolved ; 
Its  discords,  quenched  by  meeting  harmonies, 
Die  in  the  large  and  charitable  air, 
And  all  our  rarer,  better,  truer  self, 
That  sobbed  religiously  in  yearning  song, 
That  watched  to  ease  the  burthen  of  the  world, 
Laboriously  tracing  what  must  be, 
And  what  may  yet  be  better — saw  within 
A  worthier  image  for  the  sanctuary, 
And  shaped  it  forth  before  the  multitude 
Divinely  human,  raising  worship  so 
To  higher  reverence  more  mixed  with  love — 
That  better  self  shall  live  till  human  Time 
Shall  fold  its  eyelids,  and  the  human  sky 
Be  gathered  like  a  scroll  within  the  tomb 
Unread  forever. 

This  is  life  to  come, 

Which  martyred  men  have  made  more  glorious 
For  us  who  strive  to  follow.     May  I  reach 
That  purest  heaven,  be  to  other  souls 
The  cup  of  strength  in  some  great  agony, 
Enkindle  generous  ardor,  feed  pure  love, 
Beget  the  smiles  that  have  no  cruelty — 
Be  the  sweet  presence  of  a  good  diffused, 
And  in  diffusion  ever  more  intense. 


i 


64 

So  shall  I  join  the  choir  invisible 

Whose  music  is  the  gladness  of  the  world. 

I  have  striven,  under  many  disadvantages,  to  do  a 
great  woman  some  feeble  justice;  but,  in  the  deep 
sense  of  imperfect  accomplishment,  I  cannot  help 
asking,  in  the  memorable  words  that  close  the  drama 
of  Tito's  death:  "Who  shall  put  his  finger  on  the 
work  of  justice  and  say,  'It  is  here.'  Justice  is  like 
the  kingdom  of  God.  It  is  not  without  us  as  a  fact ; 
it  is  within  us  as  a  great  yearning." 


OF  THE 

IJNTVTTRfiTTV   fl 


UJMVJjJKOJLTl 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW 

Books  not  returned  on  time  are  subject  to  a  fine  of 
50c  per  volume  after  the  third  day  overdue,  increasing 
to  $1.00  per  volume  after  the  sixth  day.  ^  Books  not  in 
demand  may  be  renewed  if  application  is  made  before 
expiration  of  loan  period. 


Ji£-BERI<ELEY  LIBRARIES 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


